{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","uuid":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","normalized_title":"timeconsumptionandeverydaylifepracticematerialityandculture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%2C%20Consumption%20and%20Everyday%20Life%20Practice%2C%20Materiality%20and%20Culture","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/search"},"page":{"printed_page":118,"pdf_page":119,"physical_index":119,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"e4054494400bdc00f2a03ef10b61c97111e0fa14b4eb3e3a9d5fa857b3fb7cf2"},"chapter":"List of Tables and Figures","content":"The hybrid ‘novelties’ that blossomed in late nineteenth-century horticulture were only the most obvious examples in the intervention of natural cycles at the core of the seed trade. For the seed industry to be successful, it needed to convince its consumers not to harvest seeds from their own gardens, but rather to buy seeds from the companies each year. Although debates about seed purchasing versus seed saving did appear, particularly in regard to grain seeds as evidenced in agricultural periodicals, the trade was largely successful in convincing many Americans to purchase their seeds. Using the mechanisms discussed above, ranging from the allure of specific plant material to the inculcation of seed purchasing as an annual routine, the trade persuaded gardeners to dispense with the final stage of the plants life cycle. Instead, gardeners might rapidly deadhead flowers to encourage more blooms, or harvest all produce without letting part of their crop go to seed, preferring to devote the time and space available to them for a particular crop, rather than the means to continue growing that crop. Still, the persuasion of gardeners to purchase seeds was not as insidious an example of the push to consumption as it might initially appear, but was in part reflective of the new situations in which planting took place. For example, the rise in urban populations over the course of the nineteenth century led to a rise in market gardens, cottage kitchen gardens, leisure-time flower gardens and garden suburbs with vast lawns. The intensive planting methods of these urban and suburban settings simply would not have allowed for gardeners to reap true seeds without the natural crossing that occurs as a result of wind, birds and insects carrying the pollen of proximate plants.\n\nSo, does the phrase ‘go to seed’ indicate wastefulness or productivity? Of course, within the trade, allowing plants to go to seed was the requisite for productivity. But in order for seeds to be commodities, they had to be not only produced by one set of growers, but also discarded by another, who would then need to obtain them outside of their own gardens. Today, ‘going to seed’ tends to have a negative connotation denoting neglect and decay, stemming from the precedence that consumers grant to a plant’s productive use as an object of sustenance, economy or even beauty, above its reproductive use as the starting point of a next generation of plants. This very smallscale form of ‘planned obsolescence’ sits directly at the intersection of the natural process of planting cycles and the means of altering and influencing those cycles to create objects for consumption. The commodification of horticulture shows a tension between being guided by nature and trying to intervene in its inherent patterns for commercial or other purposes. As horticultural life is cyclical, so the trade that grew up around it is cyclical too. Purveyors and consumers of seeds both abide by and negotiate the natural cycles of plants when establishing commercial routines.\n\n118\n\nMarina Moskowitz","previous_page":117,"next_page":119}