The Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection is a special reference collection of over 150,000 American and foreign catalogs. It was begun in 1904 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) economic botanist, Percy Leroy Ricker. Its purpose now, as then, is to provide information regarding sources, prices, and descriptions of plant material offered for sale by U.S. nurserymen, growers, and seedsmen and, to a lesser extent, by foreign firms. The collection is now named for its longtime curator, Henry G. Gilbert (1930-1996).-- There are catalogs from the following countries: Africa, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Canary Islands, Ceylon, Chile, China, England, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, India, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Russia, Scotland, South America, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.