Summary table presenting 456 varieties of seeds

Summary table presenting 456 varieties of seeds, made between 1938 and 1940 by Maurice Couture (1912-1957). Seeds encapsulated in 19 sealed frames, wood, glass, cardboard, adhesive tape, ink.

Joseph Maurice Couture was born in Everell (Beauport), Quebec in 1912. He was the son of Louis-Ovide Couture, an industrialist, and Évangéline Leblanc. He completed his studies in agronomy in the spring of 1940 at the École supérieure d’agriculture de St-Anne-de-La-Pocatière. It is believed that this work was his final thesis project and was probably completed under the supervision of Elzéar Campagna and Lucien Dubé, pioneers of modern botany in Quebec and contemporaries and colleagues of the famous Father Marie-Victorin.

After marrying Blandine Garant in 1941, Couture lived in Limoilou with his wife and their two children, André and Louise. As an agronomist, he is known to have been working as manager of the grain and feed department at the Coop fédérée du Québec at the time of his untimely death in 1957. He was only 45 years old. Couture’s summary seed and grain table was remarkable in terms of its scope, covering a total of 456 vegetable and forage varieties available in 1939 (the year the table was finalized), many of which are now extinct, lost, or awaiting rediscovery).