I hope that you will seek the expert advice from such institutions as Cornell, the Smithonian, etc. I'm not entirely sure that a public forum is the best resource for information regarding this important collection. I'd think that you would want to seek out some sophisticated scientific methods regarding the ideal methods of germination. Besides anything that any of us might have to offer.

Any chances that these seeds have remained viable will be
determined almost exclusively on how they have been preserved
over the years. It's not unheard of for very old seeds to retain
a bit of life, but not likely if they've been stored in paper packets in the bottom of a box found in an attic....if you know what I mean.

You'll get lots of interesting opinions here, that's for sure. This will be an interesting thread to follow. Can you tell us how you came upon this fascinating collection? We will all want to know details, details!

We have indeed reached out to a seed specialist at Cornell as well.

The seeds came to the Hamilton College Special Collections as part of a gift of Shaker ephemera. We are trying to find out a bit more about the provenance of the seeds. At this point all we know is that some years ago an original Shaker box of seeds was found in some rural shop...and individual packets were sold to collectors. The head of our Special Collections thinks he knows who has the box itself and he is making further inquires. The college is acquiring a larger group of seed packets in the near future, many of them unopened with the seeds. The packets in the photo were opened by a conservator to protect the integrity of the packets as well as the seeds. We will attempt to grow only a small portion of the seeds from the packets.

Will keep you updated as we learn more.

I should think that either Cornell or the Smithsonian should either know or else know where to refer you. The only reason for contacting someone at, let's say regjeringen.no perhaps, is in the case of Cornell and the Smithsonian saying we don't know.