Make Money! Get Prizes! Sell Seeds.

Every month, Boys’ Life magazine arrived in the mail, a benefit of my Webelos status in the Boy Scouts of America. Each issue offered stories of adventure, achievement and encouragement, including articles about sports heroes, scouting activities, outdoorsmanship — everything of interest to young men. The advertising offered a cornucopia of childhood daredevilry, tantalizing kids with the coolest bikes, the most authentic BB guns, the most powerful model rockets. In that most kids had no money to buy such things, each issue offered several opportunities for kids to ‘make money’ and ‘get prizes’, by selling items such as greeting cards, newspapers and seeds. Like girl scouts pushing cookies, these companies built sales forces of fresh-faced kids, eagerly going door-to-door hawking their products.

I was more interested in the prizes than the money, with prizes including such wonders as archery sets, remote controlled airplanes and even 3-speed bikes. As a cynical adult, I assume that most of the prizes were both unattainable and probably junk. But as a kid, I dreamed of all the great gear I would earn. I naively believed the ads: “You can earn as many prizes as you want — quickly, easily!”

Many of the advertisements were for holiday and special occasion cards, like Olympic Sales Club and Junior Sales Club of America. But as a kid growing up in the country, experienced in tending (more accurately, weeding, grudgingly) my family’s massive vegetable garden, I was more drawn to the American Seed Company. As the ads said, “Everybody wants American Seeds. They’re fresh and ready to grow. You’ll sell them quickly to family, friends and neighbors. Many boys and girls sell their packs in one day. You can too.”

So with visions of grandeur, I filled out the order form, to request my “Big Prize Book” and 50 packs of mixed vegetable and flower seeds, having decided that some people might be more interested in flowers than vegetables, to expand my target market. I filled in my address and mailed in the card, thereby promising to “sell my packs at 25 cents a pack and send the money back and choose my prize.”

Did I mention that we lived out in the country? We had only a half dozen neighbors within a mile of our farmhouse. And most of them either had no garden or had no need for seeds, or some other reasonable excuse not to buy seeds from a neighbor kid. I couldn’t have sold more than a few packs, undoubtedly via a gesture of mercy from our neighbors.

I had a worthy plan ‘B’. My dad ran the local small-town newspaper, and the newspaper building was in town, near to a few small neighborhoods. I pleaded for him to take me with him to work one day so I could sell seeds to the nearby homeowners. So I knocked on doors. Many doors. Very few of my knocks were answered. Of the people who answered, very, very few had gardens or any interest in them. I sold only a few more packs.

Having exhausted nearby doors to knock upon, I spent a few hours at my dad’s office, lamenting my situation, no doubt helping him out with a few newspaper-office tasks suitable for an 11-year-old boy. How was I going to sell all those seeds? If I couldn’t sell the seeds, there would be no prizes. I was crestfallen that I would get none of the great stuff promised via the advertisement. I worried about how I could ever send them the 25 cents per pack that I had agreed to send them when I filled out their order form. I don’t recall what my dad said to me about seeds or selling or commitments, but knowing my dad, the ride home must have been filled with unpleasant fatherly counsel.

I sat on the seeds for a few weeks, at first promising myself that I would find a way to get them sold, later allowing the seeds to languish unsold on a shelf in my bedroom. Occasionally, my parents would inquire about how my seed sales were going and I would fib that I had talked to someone about it or that I had sold a few packs. I’m sure they knew the truth.

Finally, well past planting season, I decided to end my misery. I snatched up the box of seed packets, grabbed a shovel, hopped on my bike and rode to the far reaches of our farm acreage. I dug a hole. I tossed in the seed packets, box and all. I buried the hole, stomped on it for good measure, and then headed back to the house. Yes, I was relieved. Truly I was embarrassed, at having failed so completely at selling seeds and earning prizes.

I’m pretty sure that I never sent in the 25 cents per pack as I had promised. The advertisement said, “Send NO MONEY, We Trust You.” Certainly, they should not have trusted me. Perhaps they trusted that enough thousands of boys like me would sell some seeds that it would the cover the cost of sending me 50 packs of seeds.

We moved away from the farm the following spring and I miss it to this day. I have always wondered what became of the seeds I buried. I envision a jungle of flowers and vegetables growing from one small spot along the edge of our farm. It must have been magnificent.