e huge structures afford accommodations for
the storage and handling of seeds on the most extensive scale. An
efficient means for the improvement of the seeds is their cultivation in
different climates. In addition to widely separated seed farms in this
country, the firm has growing under its directions several thousands of
acres in Canada, England, France, Germany, Holland, and Italy.
Experimental grounds and greenhouses are attached to the Rochester and
Chicago establishments, where a sample of every parcel of seed is tested,
and experiments conducted with new varieties. One department of the
business is for the sale of horticultural and agricultural implements of
all kinds. A new department supplies ornamental grasses, immortelles, and
similar plants used by florists for decorating and for funeral emblems.
Plants for these purposes are imported from Germany, France, the Cape of
Good Hope, and other countries, and dyed and colored by the best artists
here. As an illustration of their methods of business, it may be
mentioned that the firm has distributed gratuitously, the past year,
$5,000 in seeds and prizes for essays on gardening in the Southern
States, designed to foster the interests of horticulture in that section.

The largest farm owned by Mr. Sibley, and the largest cultivated farm in
the world, deserves a special description. This is the "Sullivant Farm,"
as formerly designated, but now known as the "Burr Oaks Farm," originally
40,000 acres, situated about 100 miles south of Chicago, on both sides of
the Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railroad. The property passed into the
hands of an assignee, and, on Mr. Sullivant's death in 1879, came into
the possession of Mr. Sibley. His first step was to change the whole plan
of cultivation. Convinced that so large a territory could not be worked
profitably by hired labor, he divided it into small tracts, until there
are now many hundreds of such farms; 146 of these are occupied by tenants
working on shares, consisting of about equal proportions of Americans,
Germans, Swedes, and Frenchmen. A house and a barn have been erected on
each tract, and implements and agricultural machines provided. At the
center, on the railway, is a four-story warehouse, having a storage
capacity of 20,000 bushels, used as a depot for the seeds grown on the
farm, from which they are shipped as wanted to the establishments in
Chicago and Rochester. The largest elevator on the line of the railway