Morse, C. C.–Santa Clara, California–pioneer breeder
in sweet peas, established the C. C. Morse & Co. in 1877. The
C. C. Morse & Co. was the successor to Cox Seed Co. in San Francisco,
California. Morse’s son Lester L. Morse, born in 1870, continued
the development of the sweet pea, and he wrote Field Notes on Sweet
Peas. The second edition was published by the C. C. Morse
& Co in 1905 . Frank G. Cuthbertson supervised all the sweet
pea work done at Morse & Co. and wrote the descriptions and notes on
the list of varieties in the publication. In April 1906, the San
Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed the seed company building with
everything in it. At that time they consolidated their business with
the Cox Seed Co. and the Seed House of E. J. Bowen. They continued
all of the departments of the Cox company including the nurseries, retail
store, catalog mail business, wholesale department, and commission box
department. The 1909 catalog has extensive photographs of the
company offices and farms. In 1915, the Morse Exhibition garden at
the Panama-Pacific International Exposition won the Grand Prize.
By 1917, they had sold their nursery department to the Vallance Nursery
owned by the two brothers, John and James Vallance, who had managed the
department for a number of years previously. In 1930, the company
was merged with the D. M. Ferry & Co., Detroit, Michigan to become
the Ferry-Morse Seed Company. The Pacific Coast operations were under
the direction of Lester L. Morse. Lester’s son Charles C. Morse continued
the development of flowers.
Sources: SW3; cat.-022551;
cat-012950;
cat-016462;
cat-015737;
cat-016422;
CHSJ-Jul.
1961; CHSJ-Oct. 1961;
CP
http://www.ferry-morse.com/history.htm
http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/speccoll/html/agc.html