Blog Posts by Subject: Agriculture

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of November 20, 27 and December 4, 2012.

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of November 6 and 13, 2012.

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of October 23 and 30, 2012.

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of October 2 and 16, 2012. Images for the week of October 9 will be added later.

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of September 11, 18 and 25, 2012.

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of June 26, and July 3 and 10, 2012. These follow from the earlier Plant Patent plates posted for the weeks of April 17 and 24, 2012, the weeks of May 1, 8 and 15, 2012, the weeks of May 22, 29 and June 5, 2012 and the weeks of June 12 and 19, 2012.

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of June 12 and 19, 2012. These follow from the earlier Plant Patent plates posted for the weeks of April 17 and 24, 2012, the weeks of May 1, 8 and 15, 2012, and the weeks of May 22, 29 and June 5, 2012.

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of May 22, 29 and June, 2012. These follow from the earlier Plant Patent plates posted for the weeks of May 1, 8 and 15, 2012 and the weeks of April 17 and 24, 2012.

As before, please be careful in using these - they're really not appropriate to use for prior art or other similar searches. Otherwise, please enjoy!

Here are scans of the color plates of U.S. Plant Patents received at SIBL for the weeks of May 1, 8 and 15, 2012. These follow from the earlier Plant Patent plates posted for the weeks of April 17 and 24, 2012.

Despite the shift from the Patent and Trademark Depository Library designation to our new Patent and Trademark Resource Center status, one vestige of over 140 years of being a patent depository remains. Color images for Plant Patents are only available in print, and are still being received here at SIBL in paper format. This seems like a good opportunity to take a look at some of the most recent ones we've received here, and so we've done a bunch of QAD color image scans. Please take a look...

George M. Rommel, an early twentieth century animal husbandman and farm expert, was not one to shy away from novel solutions to agricultural challenges in America. In 1905, he championed the import from Bermuda of a breed of “woolless” sheep to address America’s “alarming appetite for lamb” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/5/1905). And he was always on the lookout for potential new uses for leftovers from agricultural enterprises. It should not, therefore, come as a surprise that his book on agricultural refuse industries, Farm Products in Industry, was printed on paper made from cornstalks and bound with boards made from cottonseed 

Charles Darwin died 130 years ago today, leaving an intellectual legacy which has profoundly influenced the general course of Western thought. He is best known for his work On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), both of which introduced radical new ideas for the time concerning the origins of humans and all life. Darwin's last work, however, devoted itself entirely to a more down-to-earth species: the lowly earthworm.

The United States Sanitary Commission records might not be the first port of call for anyone interested in studying 19th-century American agriculture or the culinary arts, but the visit could well repay the effort. 

Green used to think her story was written. The day her beloved city was burned to the ground seemed to be the end of things. Her mother, her father, and her beautiful sister were gone. The boy she loves is far away searching for his own family. The past is filled with dangerous memories and the future seems like a distant hope. So Green tries to focus on the present.

In the smoldering heat of summer, one of my greatest pleasures has been to find reprieve in New York City’s lush and thriving community gardens. For all the grandeur of the city’s more widely celebrated green spaces like Central Park and Prospect Park, there are hundreds of small-scale urban oases nestled in formerly decrepit lots across the five boroughs.

After a disaster destroys the city she loves and kills her family, fifteen-year-old Green is left with nothing; the life she once had turned to ashes just like the ashes covering her once lush garden.

“If you want a garden of your own, but have no yard---
If you wish you had some way of growing plants all through the year, even though you live where winters are long an cold---
If you want a garden small enough that you can care for it easily---
This book is for you.”

Food, Inc. is the latest and one of the most successful films to investigate the politics of produce- exactly who is controlling what we consume and the consequences of unethical industries- but it is certainly not the first.

The NYPL Photography Collection has one of the largest collections of Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographs outside of the Library of Congress. I’m not sure what it is about these images—though given the economic times I’d say they are due for a resurgence—but they continue be some of the most popular and to present some of the most iconic images in American history: Dorothea Lange’s photographs of Okies newly arrived to their hardscrabble yet hopeful life in the interior valleys of California being perhaps the most prominent example.