Ferry-Morse Seed Company

In 1856, Milo T. Gardner, Dexter M. Ferry, and Eber F. Church[1] organized a small seed-growing company, M.T.

[4] By the early 1900s, the company was doing over $2,000,000 per year in business, and supplying seeds to 160,000 retail outlets.

Operations in Charlevoix, Michigan began when the train lines extended up to that area in 1892, and a large Charlevoix warehouse facility was built in 1905 along the lake near the new Chicago and West Michigan Railway line.

Seeds were accumulated from local farms, brought to this warehouse by horse-drawn wagons, then bagged and shipped by rail or freight to Detroit.

[6] In 1905, Ferry sold one of their large corn fields to the Burroughs Adding Machine Company.

The 1906 earthquake demolished the firm's facilities, but they quickly moved to temporary space in San Francisco, and the company bought out Cox Seed and Plant.

[10] In 1981, Ferry-Morse became part of France's Groupe Limagrain, the largest seed producer in the world.

The business was merged into Plantation Products, a privately owned gardening company based in Massachusetts.