Description: Although the Shakers are best known today for their furniture and their innovative approach to design, the nineteenth-century Shaker communities were especially successful in two businesses: growing and selling vegetable seeds and medicinal herbs. In both enterprises they worked hard, made money, and developed a reputation for quality, purity, and fairness. Today, when many Americans are turning to herbal remedies as a supplement or alternative to modern medicine, the Shakers' knowledge of medicinal plants is especially timely. They studied the work of botanists and "root and herb" doctors to determine which plants to grow and how to process them. Although they didn't prescribe treatments themselves, they sold hundreds of kinds of dried herbs, extracts, oils, and patent medicines to pharmacists all over the country. In their vegetable business, the Shakers introduced the modern practice of seeds in small paper packets to ensure freshness and encourage home gardeners to try new varieties. Since Americans at that time didn't know much about growing and preparing vegetables, one Shaker society published The Gardener's Manual to educate its customers, including instructions for siting a vegetable garden, starting seeds in a hotbed, composting, and weeding. Quotations from the manual and from the journals ("With the gardners it is weed weed hoe hoe because the weeds grow very fast") provide a fascinating glimpse into this important but little-known aspect of Shaker life. Photographs taken at present-day Shaker communities allow us to visualize the Shaker vegetable and herb gardens in their true settings.

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