Podcasts about burpee seed company

Today we remember the first woman to have circumnavigated the world. We'll also learn about the wealthy horticulturist who built a magnificent estate on the shores of Lake Waban. We celebrate the botanist who was the first editor of Rhodora, the New England Botanical Club's journal. We also salute the father of British plant geography. We honor the Reverend, who wrote two sweet little books for Burpee about sweet peas. Today's Unearthed Words feature some silly light-hearted poems about the garden. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that gives us something to do in terms of projects for our garden, And then we'll wrap things up with the story of the woman who founded the Greening of Harlem. But first, let's catch up on some Greetings from Gardeners around the world and today's curated news.   Subscribe Apple  | Google  | Spotify  | Stitcher | iHeart   Gardener Greetings To participate in the Gardener Greetings segment, send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org And, to listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to play The Daily Gardener Podcast. It's that easy.   Curated News Landscape designer Piet Oudolf on finding solace in the garden | PBS NewsHour “The world has looked strange these past months, familiar places no longer familiar at all. Many people have turned to their own or community gardens during this period, growing vegetables and flowers, nourishing body and soul. Gardening centers have been among the first essential businesses to reopen. Sales of seeds have soared. Piet Oudolf isn't surprised.” Piet Oudolf ("Peet Ow-dolf") quotes from the transcript: "I think every day is an experience, because there's always something you will like, and it's not only about the plants. It's also about the light and the movement. Once you touch the plants and just start to work with them, there's a big chance that you get lost in the world of plants and that you want to experience more of gardening. You can think while you're gardening. You can think about life and how to follow up after this crisis. But at least people want to go to places where I normally would go to, to gardens and to parks. And I think that people will realize that we, as human beings, need that, to feel good. What I say for people that just start gardening, I think anything that you see at the garden center that you like can be a good start — to become a serious gardener."   Alright, that's it for today's gardening news. Now, if you'd like to check out my curated news articles and blog posts for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There's no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1740   Today is the birthday of the explorer and botanist Jeanne Baret. Jeanne was the first woman to have circumnavigated the globe as part of the expedition, which was led by Louis Antoine de Bougainville.  Beret was able to join the expedition after posing as a valet to the expedition's naturalist: Philibert Commerçon. Before the expedition, Jeanne had been employed as Commerçon's housekeeper. A few years later, his wife died, and Jeanne took over the management of the household and began a personal relationship with Commerçon. Commerçon had poor health, and it was likely that he needed Jeanne to join him on the expedition because he needed her assistance. Jeanne was an excellent botanist in her own right. When the ship stopped in Rio de Janeiro, an old leg injury prevented Commerçon from collecting specimens. Thus, it was Jeanne who ventured out into the tropics and returned with the lovely tropical vine that would be named to honor the expedition's commander: Bougainvillea.   1810  Today is the birthday of one of America's most prominent horticulturalists – Horatio Hollis Hunnewell. Horatio was staggeringly wealthy. He was a railroad financier. But he also had a lifelong love of nature and gardening. When Horatio purchased over 40 acres of land along the eastern and southern shores of Lake Waban ("Wah-bin"), he built a magnificent estate there. He had married Isabella Pratt Wells, and he decided to call his impressive home Wellesley in honor of his wife's maiden name. When it came time for the nearby town and college to settle on a name, they also chose the name Wellesley after discussing the matter with Horatio, who happened to be the most generous benefactor of the city. The Hunnewell estate was so large that when the Hunnewell children grew up, seven of the nine had homes built on the property - right next to their parent's original house. Aside from the impressive homes, Horatio added many magnificent features to the estate, including a pinetum with over 325 specimens of conifers. Hollis Honeywell made the following remark in 1899 about his trees, "No Vanderbilt, with all his great wealth, can possess one of these [trees] for the next 50 years, for could not be grown in less time than that." And, Horatio also installed the very first Topiary Garden in America at Wellesley. He referred to it as the Italian Garden, and it was ideally situated along the shore of Lake Waban. When it came to the Topiary Garden, Horatio went all out. Whenever he had guests, Horatio would have them hop aboard a large authentic Italian Gondola boat complete with an authentically dressed gondola man. After they glided up to the Topiary Gardens, they would stop and take a tour. Horatio's shores rivaled that of Lake Como in northern Italy. It's difficult to fathom how much attention this one-of-a-kind garden received from the public. Thousands of visitors from all over the country came to Wellesley just to see the topiary garden firsthand. Many more took in its beauty through photographs and engravings published in the most popular periodicals of the time. To this day — a century and a half later — the Hunnewell Topiary Garden is among the most spectacular sites in the region. There are a few stories about Horatio I discovered during my research. The first is that Horatio and his friend Nathaniel Thayer Jr. brought the game of tennis to America. The second story is that Horatio was the first person to cultivate and popularize rhododendrons In the United States.   1864  Today is the anniversary of the death of the botanist Benjamin Lincoln Robinson. In 1892, Benjamin was appointed the curator of the Asa Gray Herbarium at Harvard. When Benjamin took over, both the herbarium and the library were in dire straits. Benjamin brought in funding and expanded the herbarium. Today, the Gray Herbarium and library are still housed at Harvard at 22 Divinity Ave. In 1899, the first issue of the New England Botanical Club's journal, Rhodora, was published. And, Rhodora's first editor was Benjamin.   1881  Today is the anniversary of the death of the botanist and the father of British plant geography Hewett Cottrell Watson. In recognition of his significant contributions, the botanical society of the British Isles named their journal Watsonia. Beginning in 1834, Hewett was one of the first botanists to research plant evolution. Hewett's work also paved the way for a new science now known as ecology. When Darwin created his theory of evolution, he was standing on the shoulders of curious early evolutionists like Hewett. Darwin's popularity and success overshadowed the folks like Hewett, who came before him. Yet, it's evident that when Hewett read Darwin's Origin, his reaction was one of wonder... and also self-reflection. He spent his adult life trying to reach Darwin's conclusion. Now, as an older man, he could see the match he had lit being passed to a true torch-bringer. After reading the origin, Hewett wrote to Darwin. Hewett's letter is a part proud dad, part awed fan, and yet, he still takes time to advise Darwin on areas to improve or take heed. In two different passages, Hewett points out that Darwin had succeeded where he had stopped short, saying Darwin had figured out the quo modo or the method to knit the strings of the theory of evolution together. Hewett's letter to Darwin is quite something to read – even after all this time: 21 Nov 1859 My dear Sir Once [I started] to read the ‘Origin’ I could not rest [until] I had galloped through [all of it]. I shall now begin to re-read it more deliberately. Meantime I am tempted to write you [my] first impressions… 1st. Your leading idea will assuredly become recognized as an established truth in science, i.e. “natural selection”. (It has the characteristics of all great natural truths, clarifying what was obscure, simplifying what was intricate, adding greatly to previous knowledge). You are the greatest Revolutionist in natural history of this century, if not of all centuries. 2d. You will perhaps need … to limit or modify, ... the principle of ‘natural selection’. 3d. Now [that] these novel views are brought… before the scientific public, it seems truly remarkable how [we didn’t see them sooner].. A quarter-century ago, you & I must have [had]the same state of mind... But you were able to see & work out [the theory], … while I failed to grasp it. ... How greatly this...will shock the ideas of many men! very sincerely | Hewett C. Watson to C. Darwin | Esq. Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2540,” accessed on 26 April 2019, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/DCP-LETT-2540   1895  On this day, a photo of the horticulturist and Reverend William T. Hutchins of Indian Orchard, Massachusetts, appeared in the Springfield Republican. William is remembered for his book called "All About Sweet Peas," published in 1892 by the Burpee Seed Company. Five years later, William wrote another book for Burpee calledSweet Peas Up-to-Date.William's writings were used as promo material for Burpee, and customers positively received them. Incredibly, Burpee distributed fifty thousand copies of "All About Sweet Peas." In August of 1898, The Star-Gazette out of Elmira New York reported on a talk that William had given about the history and culture of sweet pea. “Mr. Hutchins said that the flower is a native of Sicily, and is widely cultivated there, but in late years it has come into popular favor in America, and is now raised in nearly every part of the country.  The speaker mentioned some of the rare varieties and told how they are obtained…  He also gave a most interesting description of the gardens of Mr. Eckford in England, whose cultivation [of] about seventy-five of ...the choicest sweet peas have been given to the flower lovers of the world.” And, in 1950, Charles H. Curtis, the editor of the Gardeners' Chronicle, wrote, “Fifty years ago, a parson from Indian Orchard, Massachusetts, stood on the platform in the Lecture Hall of the Crystal Palace. He was the Rev. W. T. Hutchins, an enthusiastic grower of Sweet Peas, who had a voice as sweet and persuasive as the fragrance of his subject. I can hear him now.”  One of my favorite articles featuring William was published in The Atlanta Constitution on March 31, 1991. The title of the article was "Oh, Sweet Peas, Please Climb Above My knees" and was written by Laura Martin. Laura dug up this quote by William, who said that the sweet pea has "a fragrance like the universal gospel." And, regarding the sweet pea, Laura wrote, “Finding a plant with outstanding beauty and fragrance is a treat. Many roses, of course, offer this combination, but easier and far less demanding are old-fashioned sweet peas, which will trail and climb in your garden while emitting a delicious scent. Common name: Sweet Pea . Botanical name: Lathyrus odoratus.” The Greek word lathyros means pea or pulse, and the Latin word odoratus means fragrant. Today, Japanese varieties have the most abundant blooms, and some Australian varieties are frilly. Sweet peas are a long-lasting vase flower, which makes them quite popular with florists and brides. Finally, in terms of floriography, or the language of flowers, sweet peas convey bliss and pleasure. They also mean saying goodbye after having a good time. Nothing says thank you like sweet peas. Finally, of the sweet pea, John Keats wrote: Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight;  With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,  And taper fingers catching at all things,  To bind them all about with tiny rings.   Unearthed Words July 27 is Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day - a silly, light-hearted day that brought to mind these nonsense poems.   One fine October morning In September, last July The sun lay thick upon the ground The snow shone in the sky The flowers were singing gaily The birds were full in bloom So I went down to the cellar To clean the upstairs room — Anonymous   There should be no monotony In studying your botany; It helps to train And spur the brain-- Unless you haven't gotany. It teaches you, does Botany, To know the plants and spotany, And learn just why They live or die-- In case you plant or potany. You learn, from reading Botany, Of wooly plants and cottony That grow on earth, And what they're worth, And why some spots have notany. You sketch the plants in Botany, You learn to chart and plotany Like corn or oats-- You jot down notes, If you know how to jotany. Your time, if you'll allotany, Will teach you how and what any Old plant or tree Can do or be-- And that's the use of Botany! — Berton Braley, American poet, Science Newsletter, March 9, 1929, Botany   Grow That Garden Library Rustic Garden Projects by Marianne Svärd Häggvik  This book came out in February of 2019, and the subtitle is Step-by-Step Backyard Décor from Trellises to Tree Swings, Stone Steps to Stained Glass. I tell you what; if you're bored and looking for something to do in the garden, this book is a charming gift to have on hand. It is loaded with ideas and gorgeous pieces of garden art. The projects will give you something to do and help you express yourself in the garden. Some are simple and quick, and others might take you a few days to complete. Projects include: Willow baskets Conical votives Personalized walkways Raised flowerbeds Lion's head fountains And more! The author Marianne is an engineer based in Stockholm. She had been puttering around in her garden for ages before Marianne and her husband decided to compile a book of their beautiful and fun garden projects.Marianne is the owner of Heliconia Garden, a garden design company in Sweden. This book is 256 pages of ideas and projects - all shared with today's gardener in mind. You can get a copy of Rustic Garden Projects by Marianne Svärd Häggvik and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $5.   Today's Botanic Spark 1949  Today is the birthday of the founder of the Greening of Harlem Coalition, Bernadette Cozart. Bernadette was a professional gardener and urban gardening advocate. She founded the Greening of Harlem Coalition in 1989. Her efforts transformed Harlem, bringing flower gardens and green spaces to areas previously covered by concrete and neglect. It was Bernadette Cozart who said, “Instead of taking children on field trips to see farms and gardens, why not bring nature into the community? I don't think it's fair that they should have to go outside the community to have that experience of seeing things grow.”

Homes with many small bedrooms are hotly desired today. Why? In an economic rough patch, people need roommates. Secondly, home offices are more popular than ever. Residents increasingly want yards today too. Gardening is popular as a hedge against disruptions in the food supply chain. This all makes single-family homes more popular than apartments. *The entire episode transcript is below.* The debt-to-income ratio requirement is positioned to be removed from qualified mortgages. Three listener questions are answered:  1) What about CapEx expenses?  2) What about all these property notices I get in the mail?  3) What happened to the coffee and cacao providers? I give you four reasons about why money is a taboo topic.  Learn the least likely money topic that people are willing to discuss. The most I ever made at my day job was $108,000. People must stop equating net worth with self-worth.  Resources mentioned: April Home Prices Grew 5.5%: https://www.housingwire.com/articles/u-s-home-prices-grew-5-5-in-april-despite-pandemic/ Why Money Is A Taboo Topic - Ally Bank survey: https://media.ally.com/2015-11-24-Holiday-Tip-Most-Americans-Say-Social-Conversations-About-Money-are-Taboo-According-to-Ally-Banks-Money-Talks-Study The Atlantic: Why Americans Don’t Talk About Money Mortgage Loans: RidgeLendingGroup.com QRPs: text “QRP” in ALL CAPS to 72000 or: eQRP.co By texting “QRP” to 72000 and opting in, you will receive periodic marketing messages from eQRP Co. Message & data rates may apply. Reply “STOP” to cancel. New Construction Turnkey Property: NewConstructionTurnkey.com Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Top Properties & Providers: GREturnkey.com Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Keith’s personal Instagram: @keithweinhold   Welcome to Get Rich Education. I’m your host, Keith Weinhold.   Talking about today’s hottest rental type, then my favorite guest is here on milestone Episode 300 - because that guest is you - as I help with your listener questions about your rental property operations, then “Why Money Is A Taboo Topic” (why DO people hide their salary?), and finally a little Episode 300 bonus. All today, on Get Rich Education. _____________________ Hey, you’re inside GRE. From Phoenix, AZ to Phoenixville, PA and across 188 nations worldwide. I’m Keith Weinhold.    This IS that show that’s created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world.   You’re listening to milestone Episode 300 of Get Rich Education. More on that later.   The hottest INCOME PROPERTY housing type today could very well be single-family rental (SFR) homes that have many small bedrooms.    Four bedrooms is often better than three. Three is better than two.   Yeah, today, a high number of small bedrooms is being favored over fewer large bedrooms.   For one thing, this is because as the economy is in a rough patch, more people seek roommates to share housing costs.   Also, with more people working from home now, they want the extra bedroom for quiet office privacy.   You probably already understand that more residents prefer SFRs over apartments to avoid common areas like laundry rooms and hallways and even elevators.   Another reason boosting SFR demand today is something that you might be overlooking when it comes to rental property … because often, you’re thinking about things INSIDE the property like amenities, and square footage, and layout.    But another reason renters increasingly want single-family rentals are yards. Now sometimes, duplexes might have a fenced yard for each side too, of course.   But … why are yards more desired today?   Well, there are a few reasons. In the pandemic, people have discovered gardening like the hunter-gatherers did.   Yeah, gardening as a hedge against these disruptions in the food supply chain.   In fact, Burpee Seed Company recently had the highest sales in its 144-year history.   People are gardening. In fact, the homeowner’s association in my own neighborhood recently put it to a vote among residents about “OK’ing” having a second detached building in your backyard (only 1 maximum is allowed now) and that’s because more people want to have a greenhouse today.   Gardens and greenhouses - these are most conducive to single-family rentals.   People are even buying egg-laying chickens like never before. It’s kind of a back-to-basics subculture that’s emerging.   Yes, humans are mammals and mammals need sustenance! Haha.   You need food and you need real estate.   In the midst of The Great Shutdown, people want to do more with their lawns.    Lowe’s & Home Depot are doing really well - and they’re selling home-dwellers a lot of things like Inflatable pools, patio furniture, and trampolines.   Then back indoors, yeah, you may very well want to tilt your new property buys into SFRs with more small bedrooms.   Sometimes, older SFHs can have four or even five bedrooms. One reason for that is that families had more children generations ago.   Family sizes are smaller now. So if you still have a 4-5 bedroom place, it can work well for either roommates or home offices.   If you're the "hands-on" type, building a wall to divide a large bedroom has rarely been more lucrative than it’s been lately.   Now, one 300 sf bedroom is pretty big. Dividing it into two bedrooms of 150sf each is paying off more than it has in the past.   They are some housing trends in the pandemic - demand for SFR with more small bedrooms and a yard for a garden.   In the pandemic, the broader economy is getting "bailed out" more often than a bank behaving badly.   It's not just quantitative easing, dropping interest rates on every loan type, or loosening bank reserve requirements or putting free checks into unemployed people’s hands.   Many real estate investors are getting support … almost like they had opened their own GoFundMe account.      Low supply keeps housing prices buoyant. Low mortgage rates keep demand high. Forbearance keeps borrowers from defaulting - so that further supports prices.   Now, the debt-to-income ratio (DTI) requirement is positioned to be removed from qualified mortgages.   This means borrowers that have higher existing monthly debt payments on everyday things like their car or their credit cards could now qualify for new mortgage loans - when they couldn't previously.   Well, what this does is that it creates a larger buyer pool. More people have the capacity to qualify and buy property.   This larger buyer pool serves to further push up real estate prices - and that’s both investment property and primary residences.    Well, eliminating the DTI is great news if you want to lock up more property at these historically low interest rates.   But there can be too much of a good thing. It's a call-to-vigilance to be sure we don't return to those loosey-goosey days of, say, 2005.   That's when virtually anyone with a name and a signature could get a loan. Borrowers lied about their income on loan applications and the income wasn't checked - it wasn’t even confirmed in underwriting.   So then, people with historically low-paying jobs like movie theater ushers & dishwashers & pedicurists could sometimes own a fairly lavish home back then.   When appreciation stopped in 2007, liar-borrowers had no equity to remove for servicing the payments … and that whole thing didn't end well.    We're nowhere near that point. But watch that pendulum swing.    If you’re buying for resilient cash flow, you’re not so price sensitive anyway.   -----   The first one of your listener questions today comes from Chad in Saline, Michigan.   Keith, I like your easy-to-remember VIMTUM explanation of expenses but why are you excluding CapEx expenses from the cash flow calculation?   OK, thanks, Chad.   Let me translate if you, the listener, are uninitiated on this.    The easy way to remember how to calculate your monthly cash flow is to take your rental income and subtract out your mortgage (that’s principal & interest) and your operating expenses, which I call your VIMTUM. V-I-M-T-U-M.    That’s just an acronym I use for your regularly, recurring operating expenses and VIMTUM stands for Vacancy, Insurance, Maint., Taxes, Utilities, and Mgmt. V-I-M-T-U-M   What Chad is asking about are CapEx - which a shorthand way of saying Capital Expenditures.   CapEx means large, IRregular expenses that an investor or even a homeowner - often incurs with their property over longer periods of time.   An example is, what happens when your roof needs to be replaced? A lot of roofs have a 25-year life expectancy.   Now, your property’s water heater has more like a 10-year life expectancy.   Chad is basically asking me how I’m accounting for that when figuring cash flow. I think I addressed this on a prior episode, but it’s been a long time so I’ll bring a fresh angle to the answer.   First of all, I’ve mentioned previously that it's prudent to keep 3-5% of the TOTAL value of your property portfolio in a liquid side fund.    So if all your properties are worth $1M, you’d have $30K - $50K in cash or cash equivalents.   If you’ve just got your, say first turnkey at $100K - have $3 to $5K set aside.   Note that when you qualify for a mortgage in the first place, mortgage loan underwriting typically requires that you have reserves already.   And, by the way, this liquid side fund should be in addition to any overall liquid emergency fund that you have in your life.   But, Chad, on your CapEx question, you might still be thinking ...   Yes, I want to take some of those dollars that you’ve felt compelled to put in a liquid side fund account monthly and factor THAT in to your property ROI. I get that. Here’s the thing.   If you follow … really … the entire wealth formula espoused here on the show, your CapEx expense should be limited. You’re going to pay less in CapEx expenses than other investors.   Why is that? It’s because at the 8-to-10 year mark, which is before a lot of major CapEx items need attention, you’re going to sell your property and 1031 Exchange it into the next one - or hopefully into two at that point.   That is all driven by the fact that, after most any 10-year slice in the housing market, you’re going to have appreciation, hence accumulated equity.   As you know, home equity is unsafe, illiquid, and its rate of return is always zero.   So it’s really due to math and the loss of leverage that makes you move your property along before CapEx expenses kick in.   And with SFRs, you can sell to an owner-occupant buyer that typically get emotions behind the home and isn’t at all concerned that you were the one that enjoyed the new roof in its first ten years of use or whatever.    Now, if you have substantial enquiry accumulation after 10 years on a property that performs really well and you want to hold onto it, then you might do a cash-out refi and have CapEx expenses like a new water heater.   So, thanks for your excellent question, Chad.     One other thing I’d like to mention that a lot of real estate people don’t like to talk about are to, in general, run your cash flow projections fairly conservatively.   That is because, in real estate, unexpected expenses are more common than unexpected income.   Thanks, Chad.   The next question comes from Lori in Pasadena, CA.    Lori says, “Keith, love listening to you. You’ve got the most relevant real estate show out there. Wow, thanks for that.  Things are going fairly well with the properties that I buy through GRETurnkey.com but with each buy, I get more & more of these various letters in the mai that I have to deal with.   The latest one is an annual property rental fee statement from Florida. Things like this continue to cut into my time … umm … and then Lori goes on to give another example.   OK, Lori. Yeah, what she’s talking about here … is that the Florida municipality - the town - where her rental SFH is located has this annoying little administrative charge.   They charge a whole $50 per year to Lori for this property because she’s an out-of-area investor that has the “privilege” of owning Florida rental property in their town.   This is basically like a tax excised by the town where she owns her property.   What something like this really is Lori is … a nuisance. Just reading the form, and figuring it out what it is, and seeing how that Florida town accepts the payment. It IS annoying. It cuts into your time.   In fact, I got a piece of nuisance mail for one of my apartment buildings just yesterday.      This is from a utility provider - the natural gas provider to the building. Basically, the natural gas company is working on a high-pressure gas transmission pipeline, and the R-O-W for the pipeline is apparently within ⅛ of a mile of this apartment building of mine.   The letter said that the property residents should be informed.   Well, Lori, with the piece of nuisance mail that you received and the one that I got, here’s what you do. Get it out of your life. Get that nuisance mail out of your life.   Now, I don’t mean “throw it away”. This all comes down to one word - and that word is “manager”.    What I did was get out my phone, I took a photo of this letter, sent the letter image to my Property Manager right away.    I asked them to handle it - and also asked the manager to make sure to tell the letter sender that any future correspondence like this be sent to the manager, not me.   You know what we just did, Lori. We both just increased our ROTI. Yes, we just increased that all-important investor metric that’s even more important than ROI.   ROTI is your Return on Time Invested.   I’m a big proponent after having a professional Property Manager. Remember, it’s their job to handle communications with your residents like this - and it doesn’t cost you anything extra.   Remember to outsource these little nuisances to your PM.   Lori, I don’t know how many properties you have, but just say you have a total of ten rental doors.    With a portfolio that size, some months, you might have what investors call “a perfect month” - that is, a month with zero repairs or maintenance in your portfolio.   But whenever you do, sometimes you might wonder - well, what did I pay the manager for?    Well, you still paid your manager to collect the rent and pay your bills and itemize your statements, and just have the peace of mind that your tenants can’t get ahold of your DIRECTLY at an inconvenient time.   But ensuring that your manager handles all your nuisance notices such that you don’t even know that you got one … that increases your Return on Time Invested.    Be that responsible owner. Do good in the world. You want a nuisance tax notice to get paid, you want your tenants to be informed about nearby utility work - but be sure to outsource it and keep your quality of life.    Like I’m fond of saying, “Be sure your quality of life exceeds your cost of living”.    Bottom line is - Use your manager. Thanks for the question, Lori!     The next question is from Brian in Austin, TX. Brian says:    Hi Keith, I am an investor with $7 million in value across 32 properties. (Nice job there, Brian). I noticed you are not promoting coffee and cocoa any longer and was curious if there was concern or a reason behind it? Thanks, Brian.   Alright, Brian. What he’s referring to is that at GREturnkey.com - where our list of cash-flowing property providers is, there used to be a page for coffee investing there and a page for cacao investing there - and they’re both currently gone.   Brian, what happened is that, with the provider there - and its the same provider for both types of agricultural investment - that is, where you, the investor, get cash flow from the ANNUAL harvest of coffee and cacao is that that provider is having trouble with the deeding process where those parcels are located - namely, in Panama.   The provider is still delivering the land deeds to all the investors. But working with the municipality there is taking so long that this long, drawn-out deeding process was frustrating to some investors.    In fact, it might have taken me … something like two years to get my deeds for my coffee farm parcels. I don’t really remember - but it took awhile.   Anyway, those offerings aren’t currently on GREturnkey.com because the provider is changing their model, in part because of the slow deeding process. They’re listening to your input and responding. They’re doing, really, what you would want them to do.   So they are moving toward a Private Placement model. That way, they can issue the share certificates in a matter of weeks, not years like it is with the deeds, and they can focus their time and effort on actually developing, growing and operating the business.   Another is that under the deeded model, they couldn’t accept IRA funds any longer.   So, expect coffee and cacao to be back on GREturnkey.com at a later time. That’s why they’re not there now. There aren’t any more deeded parcels available - and they’re changing their model.    But, of course, they’re still working on getting the deeds for those that have bought those farm parcels in the last few years & still don’t have their deeds.   The main reason that you’ll see a provider be removed from GREturnkey.com is that they’ve run out of INVENTORY in that market.    If a provider doesn’t have inventory & doesn’t actively source it, then there’s no reason to waste your time & have it there at GREturnkey.com.   That is all for our listener questions today.   Homes prices for April grew 5-and-a-half percent year-over-year despite the pandemic. Yes, real estate is slow moving and we’re still looking at April data here near mid-summer.   That article is in the Show Notes for you.    My guess is that I wouldn’t really expect an appreciation rate that high over the NEXT year.   But one thing that is supporting prices are those “erstwhile” mentioned low, low mortgage interest rates that are even lower than the ocean floor at this point.    Let’s look at mortgage interest rates decade-by-decade. Gosh, this is just remarkable.    It gives you perspective sort of like a while ago when I played those cornball television commercial ads from the 1980s where you could finance a car for an 11% APR - and that was touted as a great deal.   Well, let’s look at the average 30-year fixed OO mortgage rate that was issued in the 1970s.   It was 8.9% then. That was the average rate. Inflation was increasing.   By the 1980s decade, inflation had reached a crescendo. This was the Voelcker Era - where Fed Chair Paul Voelcker famously raised interest rates to try to stomp out runaway inflation.   And Voelcker’s bold move WAS successful. But this helped result in a 1980s decade mortgage rate of 12.7%. Gosh, 12.7%.   By the 1990s, they settled down to 8.1%.   By the 2000s decade, down to 6.3%. Yeah, that sounds about right - I bought my first ever property in 2002 at right about that rate - it was 6-⅜%.   By the 2010s decade, we had low interest rates to pull us out of The Great Recession and they stayed low. In fact, the average for the 2010s decade was … 4.1%.   That felt unprecedented at the time. Well, today, take another full percentage point off that yet. Mortgage interest rates are 3.1% today … as we’re here early in the 2020s decade.   Just astonishing. 3.1%.   Now, interest rates correlate with inflation. So today we’re in a low inflation environment and hence, a low interest rate environment.   Well, coming up here on the show next week, one of the world’s most prominent economists will be on the show with me and we’re going to discuss Inflation vs. Deflation.    Which side is winning … and what is going to happen next. Of course, we’ll discuss the state of the broader real estate economy and so much more as well. That’s next week.   I hope that you are doing well. We’ve been largely sheltering-in-place here at our home in Anchorage, Alaska. I’m coming to you from Anchorage today.   Next week, if all goes as planned - it’s an awkward time for cross-continental travel, but I’ll be flying into Buffalo, New York, and then spending a good chunk of this month in both western New York State and mostly Pennsylvania … as I’m visiting family. I think I’ve told you before that I feel like I won the “parent lottery”.   My terrific parents have lived in the same upstate Pennsylvania home since 1974. They've also had the same phone number for all 46 years.    And when I visit them, I still sleep in my same bedroom that I slept in as a baby. I love Curt & Penny Weinhold - and I am so grateful and inspired by their example of goodness and stability.   As far as events - if you want to meet in-person. I had hoped to do meetups in New York City and Philadelphia this summer, as well as a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania real estate field trip. But COVID has wiped out all of that.   Of course, as always, you can keep up-to-date on all of that GetRichEducation.com/Events   Some other live speaking events have gone virtual. For example, I’ll no longer be speaking in Birmingham, Alabama at the Spartan Summit this coming October.    But I will be speaking at their “event gone virtual”. In fact, I’ll be the speaker KICKING OFF The Spartan Summit. Again, learn more at GetRichEducation.com/Events.   I hope to do some or all of the live New York City, Philly and Harrisburg events next year.    For milestone Episode 300 here, do you like the Get Rich Education … theme music? Or did you at least, wonder where the now-familiar-to-you music comes from.     Well, we don’t purport to be any type of music channel. This is an investing show.   But this one time, for Episode 300, we’re going to play all of it - it’s two minutes long - at the end of the show today.    We own the royalty-free track. This show launched in 2014, and this track has been our theme music since late 2017. It’s from a DJ named Wicksford and it’s called “Cannot Be Stopped”.    But first - why don’t people talk about money? Why are other people so secretive about their salary? Why is money considered a taboo topic, then anyway? That’s next.    I’m Keith Weinhold. You’re listening to the wealth-building Get Rich Education.  ___________________   Welcome back to Get Rich Education. You are listening to milestone Episode 300.   We’ve been talking about some of your harder real estate investing skills today.   Well, what about mindset?   Why Don’t People Talk About Money? Why is money a taboo topic - one of those things that you just don’t talk about? It’s taboo stuff - right up there with politics, sex, and religion? Well, if people would stop equating self-worth with net worth, then talking about money would not be this big taboo thing.   According to a survey conducted by Ally Bank, 70% of Americans think that it’s rude to talk about money.  Just, get this - Research shows people would rather talk with a stranger about an STD than their salary. Oh geez. You’d rather tell someone you have an STD than tell them how much you make? People would rather admit to contracting gonorrhea than fessing up that they only make $54,000 a year. Sheesh!!  Oh, gosh … and did I really just use that word on the show. Especially here on Milestone Episode 300? So … well why this … society-wide gag rule? Why does this taboo exist? I think that it all boils down to about four big reasons. People don’t talk about money because, most people don’t have much money. So there’s this negative association. Talking about money is proportionate to talking about problems. If you’ve had more financial success in life, then it can be easy to forget that so many people think this way.  The second reason that “money talk” and especially “salary talk” is taboo is that because if you have a lot of money … you know what can happen to you?  Someone might ask you to borrow it. Well, lending money to family or friends is a great way to strain relationships. If they’re late to pay you back, then it’s rude for you to even ask someone when they’re going to repay you. Another reason that there’s a prohibition of “money talk” … at least in America here … is because many Americans put a higher value on PRIVACY than other societies do. Now, I think that there are gradations of what money TOPICS are acceptable to discuss and what are not. I’m pretty sure that I’ve told you on a previous show - though at this point, 300 episodes, sometimes I can forget - but I’m pretty sure that I told you that the most that I ever made at my day job before quitting it more than five years ago was $108K. At times, I had to work more than forty hours a week for that.  Now, that might be $125K in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars, but that salary was no longer that interesting to me when my real estate provides value to people with very little of my involvement. Now, I’m kind of a rare person for me to even mention - a past salary like that - even though it was kind of in a former life of mine. In America, if something costs even more than a few hundred dollars, MAYBE you shouldn’t mention it. If your friend bought a canoe for the lake - you might want to know how much it cost, but you’re hesitant to ask them the question.   When we talk about gradations of cultural acceptance, I think that if you inquire about the cost of your friend’s lunch yesterday—that’s a transaction with pretty limited connections to the past and future—and that generally isn’t off-limits.   Now, in Israel, people OPENLY discuss salary. Why is that? Well, there are a couple reasons. It’s because a place like Israel historically places a lower cultural premium on privacy.  Another reason … is that a place like Israel and other places in the world have higher levels of labor unionization. You see, “once it’s collective bargaining, it’s not as personal”. When you’re a member of a labor union, you often know each other’s job classification and that job title is rigidly tied to a fixed and publicly-viewable salary or wage.  And then, really another reason for the cultural “Money talk taboo” in America, is because asking someone what they earn means that you are indirectly questioning their personal worth.”  “By contrast, in China personal worth is not primarily indexed to financial worth, but rather one’s ‘quality’ or what they call “SUZZ-eee” (suzhi).  Your moral and ethical values cannot be reduced to economic value.” Yeah, I really respect that. Getting back to the Ally Bank survey - what they found is that when people DO discuss finances socially, nearly one half of the survey respondents said they prefer to keep it neutral - for example, talking about price comparisons on goods and services like granola bars or a manicure, or where to find a better interest rate on a savings account." It also found that younger people are more open about discussing money More than any other age group, millennials (59 percent of them) acknowledged talking with others about their income, savings and debt, even though nearly two-thirds agreed it is rude or inappropriate to talk about money in a social setting.    In fact, almost half say they disclose their income to others, and 62 percent say it is important for them to surround themselves with people who they feel are financially secure. So, even kind of the second-youngest generation today, Millennials, would rather be around people that are financially-secure. Hmmm … that’s really “telling”.    Now, what I found interesting is that the survey revealed that: The majority of respondents said they discuss sensitive money matters with family is 69 percent, with financial professionals is 26 percent, and with friends is only 22%, while only 8% percent said they discuss sensitive money matters with work colleagues.  That shows more there that when you to talk about it - it’s deemed to be a real breach of professionalism to discuss this stuff at work.   People are most likely to disclose their income (39 percent) over savings (30 percent) or debt (29 percent) to family and friends. That tells you that disclosing debt is the most embarrassing for people. Of course, that’s mainstream society.  Here at Get Rich Education, displaying the amount of good debt that you have probably says something rather positive about your real estate portfolio size.   Now, in WORKING-CLASS communities, the money taboo can be weaker there.  Jennifer Silva is a sociologist at Indiana University and she researched the coal-producing region of Pennsylvania. The bottom line is that the working-class families she’s interviewed didn’t hesitate to disclose specifics about their income, rent amount, or expenditures.  “People would say, ‘I’m an open book,’ and they’d be straightforward, open, not ashamed.”  They freely discussed “the challenges or even impossibilities of supporting a family on minimum-wage work” and almost acted a little proud of their resourcefulness, like “how they would make their budget stretch, such as buying ground meat in bulk and freezing portions to make it last.” You know, from my personal vantage point, sometimes you will BE around people that you know make substantially less money than you, And you know what, you DO find yourself tilting the conversation so that person isn’t made uncomfortable. What about when you go get your hair cut? I mean, the 15-minute conversation that takes place between me & the person that cuts my hair … it’s like, if they ask me what I did this weekend - and I stayed in a resort and they already told me that they played basketball with their kids or something else - even though basketball with your kids might be a GREATER activity in a sense than staying at a resort … I don’t mention staying at a resort because it sounds hoity-toity … a little snobbish. Kinda unrelatable to them. So then maybe I’ll tilt that chat to NBA Basketball or something. Chat about something that’s not so socioeconomically stratified. You can always find that common ground somewhere.  You know, another personal anecdote, in my life, I do a lot of these 5K running races & other events like that. The race event makes my time publicly available. The local news outlets might even pick up those races times and publish them.  Anyone can see it. Well, that is a measure of my fitness on that day. There are clearly plenty of runners that rank both above me and below me. So, that’s made public? But yet salaries are not?  Somehow, American society does not equate physical fitness nearly to the degree that we evaluate and stratify how much money you make. I don’t know that it should be that way, but it is. I think that’s rather weird. Revealing how much money you make, to many people,  “exposes how you’re valued by your employer and how your contribution is valued even more broadly, by the community.” That makes an ounce of sense, sure, but why such a high value? I don’t get that part. Few people would think “You are worthless because you haven't broken the 20-minute mark in a 5K yet.”  But for some reason, WAAAY more people would equate you with having a lower worth if, say they learned that you only made $54,000.  Now, Eli Cook - he’s a history professor at the University of (HIGH-fuh) Haifa and the author of a book on the topic, says that this money taboo has been going on for about 150 years in America.   In the late 1800s and early 1900s, he says that many Americans internalized the lessons of mainstream neoclassical economics, which suggested, through [the economist] John Bates Clark’s theory of marginal productivity, that everyone earns what they in fact produced.”    So … that’s one opinion on about HOW LONG this has been taking place.   Really, what a lot of this comes down to is that the everyday conversations that you have with others are filled with questions about what people buy, what they do for a living, or how long they’ve been investing in real estate, and where they went to school.  And once you know all of those things about someone else, the salary or net worth or cash flow are less important … because all of this is CONTEXT that you have about others - and these are all really proxies for class position anyway.   When we can stop equating net worth with self-worth, money has a chance of no longer being a taboo topic … and that really is, the big takeaway.   I trust that you’ve been enjoying MILESTONE Episode 300 of Get Rich Education.   As always, to get the Show Notes, you can go to GetRichEducation.com/300 - since that’s the episode number.    In fact, this week, you’ll find the entire transcript to the episode if you would like to read along … or you tell someone else about the show and tell them about the option to read as they listen.   Above all, I have got to thank you for listening. I hear from so many people that tell me when they discover this show, they want to go back & listen to all 300 episodes …   … usually because I hear one of two things. They say it makes actionable real estate investing more CLEAR than anywhere else … or that it's changed their investor MINDSET more than anything else.    Remember, if you’re interested, hang around until the very end of the show today to hear the entire uncut theme music … as a little Episode 300 bonus.    More importantly, if you’re one of those people that STILL has not bought your first property.    You can’t TIME the market, and you can’t make any money from the property that you don’t own.    As long as you’ve been educating yourself for a while, then, if you think that inexperience is the only thing holding you back, well, then the only way to GET that needed experience and learning is to act.   Some people wait for ALL blue sky and everything to be perfect before they begin. Well … that really never happens.   You’ll either change what you’re doing … or you’ll keep what you’ve got.   Teach a man to fish … or give a man a fish?   Well, here, we do both. At Get Rich Education, we TEACH you how to fish.    GREturnkey.com is our sister website where we GIVE you a fish too - with top national turnkey providers.   Get your mortgage pre-approval and download a provider report. We give you all 8 main steps at the top of the page there.   View available properties, make an offer, please get a third-party property inspection, then comes the appraisal, then sign a Property Management Agreement …   … have your property closing, and finally, own the property and enjoy the collected RENT that your PM auto-deposits into your bank account. Get started at GREturnkey.com   I’m your host, Keith Weinhold and I’ll be back next week and every week to help you build your wealth. Don’t Quit Your Daydream!

Irises are in full bloom right now. Although, there are around 300 species of iris, Bearded Iris and Siberian Iris are two of the most common types of irises grown. Iris takes its name from the Greek word for a rainbow. During the Middle Ages, irises were linked to the French monarchy, and theFleur-de-lis is now a national symbol of France.     Brevities #OTD    It was on this day in 1820, that the botanist Joseph Banks died in England.   Banks is best known for his study of Australian flora and faunaIn his role as botanist on board The Endeavor with Capt. James Cook.   When banks return to England, he advised George III on on the creation of the Royal botanic Garden, also known as Kew.       #OTD   Twenty years after the death of Joseph Banks, the "Raphael of flowers," Pierre-Joseph Redouté died.   He was known for his watercolors of roses and lilies.He's often referred to as the greatest botanical illustrator of all time.   He was an official court draftsmen to Queen Marie Antoinette. One evening around midnight, she summoned him to appear before her and she asked him to paint her a cactus.   He also became a favorite of Josephine Bonaparte and his paintings of her flowers at Malmaison are among his finest works.       #OTD   It was on this day in 1872 that the English horticulturalist, landscape designer, and botanist Theodore Payne was born.   He made his way from England to California.  And, he was an early advocate for California native plants.   He started his own seedling business In 1903 in downtown Los Angeles.   His specialty was California native wildflower seeds, bulbs, and plants.   Payne was involved in the creation of many native plant gardens. In 1939, he created one at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, using 178 plant species and all were native to California.   It was Theodore Payne who said,   "Be a good Californian; be loyal to your own state and keep your landscape Californian, by planting trees from California."        #OTD    It's the birthday of Elbert Green Hubbard born on this day in 1856.   He was a writer, artist, and the philosopher. Among Hubbard's many publications, with the piece he wrote about the founder of the Burpee Seed Company called, "The business of distributing flower seeds."   It was Elbert Hubbard who gave us these marvelous quotes:   "Our finest flowers are often weeds transplanted."   "A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world."   "To me, flowers are happiness. If I had but two loaves of bread I would sell one of them & buy White Hyacinths to feed my soul.”   "Without love, the world would only echo cries of pain, the sun would only shine to show us grief, each rustle of the wind among the leaves would be a sigh, and all the flowers fit only to garland graves."   In 1915, Albert Hubbard and his wife, Alice, guy.   They were on a ship called The Lusitania when it was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland.         Unearthed Words   It's the anniversary of the death of the author of Peter Pan; James Matthew Barrie.   Barrie was inspired by Kensington Gardens.   In 1912, he commissioned Sir George Frampton to build the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. It's been a favorite of visitors to the park ever since.   Gardens and flowers were a tremendous source of inspiration from Barrie. The following are just a few samples of his garden inspired prose:   “There is almost nothing that has such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf.”      “The unhappy Hook was as impotent as he was damp, and he fell forward like a cut flower.”   “All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.”    Today's book recommendation: "Reader's Digest" New Encyclopedia of Garden Plants & Flowers by Justine et al Scott-McNab This is one of my favorite resources. Published back in 1997. Brand-new, this book is almost $200. You can get used copies following the link in today show notes on Amazon for just under $8. Describing 900 genera and over 8000 plants, this A-Z gardening encyclopaedia also introduces a way of identifying plants from their appearance alone. Hundreds of synonyms and common names are cross-referenced, and the book's coverage encompasses fruit, vegetables, herbs, house plants, flowers, foliage, shrubs and trees. The main benefits, uses and any drawbacks of each plant are pointed out, and there are instructions on cultivation, propagation and pruning techniques, and on dealing with pests and diseases. Today's Garden Chore It's time to get some new work gloves.   I scoured the options here locally and these are my favorite. They are at Home Depot and they are $9.99.They offer the perfect amount of toughness and dexterity. Also - they fit.   If you jump online at Home Depot, you can find them by searching for, "general purpose glove firm grip".   They are yellow, black, and grey.  They are great.         Something Sweet  Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart   I recently ran across the most delightful picture of Jean. She's wearing a graphic blouse That is covered with pictures of turnips; and then across the upper right shoulder are the words "Victory Garden."   During World War II, people were asked to plant Victory Gardens and the Victory Garden fashion scene was born.   I ran across one advertisement for a blouse and skirt that came with a free package of seeds.   Here's what it said,   "Blossom forth. Plant seeds in your victory garden and look like a flower yourself."   The blouse was selling for $2.25 and the skirt was $2.89.

Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. Yet, this was precisely the goal of agricultural innovators like David Burpee, of the Burpee Seed Company, who sought to use radiation and chemical mutagens to accelerate the generation of new plant varieties, a process otherwise requiring painstaking, slow, and resource-intensive artificial selection. Helen Anne Curry‘s Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a fascinating history of biotechnology that documents the interplay between genetic research and agricultural production; genetic engineering avant la lettre, one is tempted to say, although botanist A. F. Blakeslee, who figures prominently in the narrative, made a failed attempt to promote the designation “genetics engineer” to describe his work. Through the lens of three different technologies–x-rays, the chemical colchicine, and atomic radiation–Curry shows how chromosomes and genetic mutations became sites of speculation for industrial agriculture and of experimentation for amateur plant breeders. She deftly restores the experimental station, the marketplace, and the garden to their proper place as sites of knowledge production, showing that landscape and lab were perhaps never so separable as our modern conceit might make them appear. This is part one of a series of new work on twentieth-century biotechnology–look out for further interviews featuring some great new work published by the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. Yet, this was precisely the goal of agricultural innovators like David Burpee, of the Burpee Seed Company, who sought to use radiation and chemical mutagens to accelerate the generation of new plant varieties, a process otherwise requiring painstaking, slow, and resource-intensive artificial selection. Helen Anne Curry‘s Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a fascinating history of biotechnology that documents the interplay between genetic research and agricultural production; genetic engineering avant la lettre, one is tempted to say, although botanist A. F. Blakeslee, who figures prominently in the narrative, made a failed attempt to promote the designation “genetics engineer” to describe his work. Through the lens of three different technologies–x-rays, the chemical colchicine, and atomic radiation–Curry shows how chromosomes and genetic mutations became sites of speculation for industrial agriculture and of experimentation for amateur plant breeders. She deftly restores the experimental station, the marketplace, and the garden to their proper place as sites of knowledge production, showing that landscape and lab were perhaps never so separable as our modern conceit might make them appear. This is part one of a series of new work on twentieth-century biotechnology–look out for further interviews featuring some great new work published by the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. Yet, this was precisely the goal of agricultural innovators like David Burpee, of the Burpee Seed Company, who sought to use radiation and chemical mutagens to accelerate the generation of new plant varieties, a process otherwise requiring painstaking, slow, and resource-intensive artificial selection. Helen Anne Curry‘s Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a fascinating history of biotechnology that documents the interplay between genetic research and agricultural production; genetic engineering avant la lettre, one is tempted to say, although botanist A. F. Blakeslee, who figures prominently in the narrative, made a failed attempt to promote the designation “genetics engineer” to describe his work. Through the lens of three different technologies–x-rays, the chemical colchicine, and atomic radiation–Curry shows how chromosomes and genetic mutations became sites of speculation for industrial agriculture and of experimentation for amateur plant breeders. She deftly restores the experimental station, the marketplace, and the garden to their proper place as sites of knowledge production, showing that landscape and lab were perhaps never so separable as our modern conceit might make them appear. This is part one of a series of new work on twentieth-century biotechnology–look out for further interviews featuring some great new work published by the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. Yet, this was precisely the goal of agricultural innovators like David Burpee, of the Burpee Seed Company, who sought to use radiation and chemical mutagens to accelerate the generation of new plant varieties, a process otherwise requiring painstaking, slow, and resource-intensive artificial selection. Helen Anne Curry‘s Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a fascinating history of biotechnology that documents the interplay between genetic research and agricultural production; genetic engineering avant la lettre, one is tempted to say, although botanist A. F. Blakeslee, who figures prominently in the narrative, made a failed attempt to promote the designation “genetics engineer” to describe his work. Through the lens of three different technologies–x-rays, the chemical colchicine, and atomic radiation–Curry shows how chromosomes and genetic mutations became sites of speculation for industrial agriculture and of experimentation for amateur plant breeders. She deftly restores the experimental station, the marketplace, and the garden to their proper place as sites of knowledge production, showing that landscape and lab were perhaps never so separable as our modern conceit might make them appear. This is part one of a series of new work on twentieth-century biotechnology–look out for further interviews featuring some great new work published by the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. Yet, this was precisely the goal of agricultural innovators like David Burpee, of the Burpee Seed Company, who sought to use radiation and chemical mutagens to accelerate the generation of new plant varieties, a process otherwise requiring painstaking, slow, and resource-intensive artificial selection. Helen Anne Curry‘s Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a fascinating history of biotechnology that documents the interplay between genetic research and agricultural production; genetic engineering avant la lettre, one is tempted to say, although botanist A. F. Blakeslee, who figures prominently in the narrative, made a failed attempt to promote the designation “genetics engineer” to describe his work. Through the lens of three different technologies–x-rays, the chemical colchicine, and atomic radiation–Curry shows how chromosomes and genetic mutations became sites of speculation for industrial agriculture and of experimentation for amateur plant breeders. She deftly restores the experimental station, the marketplace, and the garden to their proper place as sites of knowledge production, showing that landscape and lab were perhaps never so separable as our modern conceit might make them appear. This is part one of a series of new work on twentieth-century biotechnology–look out for further interviews featuring some great new work published by the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. Yet, this was precisely the goal of agricultural innovators like David Burpee, of the Burpee Seed Company, who sought to use radiation and chemical mutagens to accelerate the generation of new plant varieties, a process otherwise requiring painstaking, slow, and resource-intensive artificial selection. Helen Anne Curry‘s Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a fascinating history of biotechnology that documents the interplay between genetic research and agricultural production; genetic engineering avant la lettre, one is tempted to say, although botanist A. F. Blakeslee, who figures prominently in the narrative, made a failed attempt to promote the designation “genetics engineer” to describe his work. Through the lens of three different technologies–x-rays, the chemical colchicine, and atomic radiation–Curry shows how chromosomes and genetic mutations became sites of speculation for industrial agriculture and of experimentation for amateur plant breeders. She deftly restores the experimental station, the marketplace, and the garden to their proper place as sites of knowledge production, showing that landscape and lab were perhaps never so separable as our modern conceit might make them appear. This is part one of a series of new work on twentieth-century biotechnology–look out for further interviews featuring some great new work published by the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. Yet, this was precisely the goal of agricultural innovators like David Burpee, of the Burpee Seed Company, who sought to use radiation and chemical mutagens to accelerate the generation of new plant varieties, a process otherwise requiring painstaking, slow, and resource-intensive artificial selection. Helen Anne Curry‘s Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a fascinating history of biotechnology that documents the interplay between genetic research and agricultural production; genetic engineering avant la lettre, one is tempted to say, although botanist A. F. Blakeslee, who figures prominently in the narrative, made a failed attempt to promote the designation “genetics engineer” to describe his work. Through the lens of three different technologies–x-rays, the chemical colchicine, and atomic radiation–Curry shows how chromosomes and genetic mutations became sites of speculation for industrial agriculture and of experimentation for amateur plant breeders. She deftly restores the experimental station, the marketplace, and the garden to their proper place as sites of knowledge production, showing that landscape and lab were perhaps never so separable as our modern conceit might make them appear. This is part one of a series of new work on twentieth-century biotechnology–look out for further interviews featuring some great new work published by the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nowadays, it might seem perplexing for the founder of a seed company to express the intention to “shock Mother Nature,” or at least in bad taste. Yet, this was precisely the goal of agricultural innovators like David Burpee, of the Burpee Seed Company, who sought to use radiation and chemical mutagens to accelerate the generation of new plant varieties, a process otherwise requiring painstaking, slow, and resource-intensive artificial selection. Helen Anne Curry‘s Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a fascinating history of biotechnology that documents the interplay between genetic research and agricultural production; genetic engineering avant la lettre, one is tempted to say, although botanist A. F. Blakeslee, who figures prominently in the narrative, made a failed attempt to promote the designation “genetics engineer” to describe his work. Through the lens of three different technologies–x-rays, the chemical colchicine, and atomic radiation–Curry shows how chromosomes and genetic mutations became sites of speculation for industrial agriculture and of experimentation for amateur plant breeders. She deftly restores the experimental station, the marketplace, and the garden to their proper place as sites of knowledge production, showing that landscape and lab were perhaps never so separable as our modern conceit might make them appear. This is part one of a series of new work on twentieth-century biotechnology–look out for further interviews featuring some great new work published by the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices