Were they used with a rubber ring? Or are they not canning lids at all, just storage lids?

>In this style of lid, the seal was not on the rim of the jar mouth but on the shoulder, below the threads.

...which explains something else I have always wondered about -- why older jars have a more pronounced 'lip', below the threads.

The quote is from here: http://www.backwoodshome.com/forum/vb/showthread.php?t=17067

That page also has a detailed quote from an old BBB on the topic :).

I use mine as seed jars.

You plant them and more jars grow? Cool!

(I do a lot of seed saving, too, but ran out of room for jars. Ziploc bags fit my little house better :).

Ziploc's allow condensation that isn't good for the seed. Just 1 bit of moisture and the entire bag is gone.

Most of my seed varieties are in the fridge. Way more seeds than food in there :).

I am thinking I might set up a dedicated seed fridge, but it would have to be a little dorm-style one, and that would mean not frostfree, so a less dry environment. What do you think?

In the "old days" they used to burn or bury all their trash. I figure at some point, these were buried or got buried over time. They weren't deep either. Not more than 6 or 8 inches.

The other place they used to dispose of things were in outhouses. Relic hunters look on old home sites for old outhouse sites in search of old glass bottles and relics of the past. I doubt there was an outhouse there, but that dirt might have been excavated when terracing or clear cutting for the pasture. I dunno.

Of course, it could have been from years of passersby tossing things in the woods at the time and they just happened to land there. Or maybe it was an old moonshine still site. Not too far from the creek... :-)