THREE FRIENDS OF HORTICULTURE. 337 



College, probably no other one is better known or held in higher regard than 

 is Dr. Kedzie by the farmers of Michigan. We well recall the first series of 

 farmers' institutes held in Michigan, of which valuable system of schools for 

 farmers he was the originator, in which Dr. Kedzie's invaluable lecture on 

 manures was only equaled by that on lightning rods, in which, after exhaustive 

 scientific treatment of the subject and careful instruction how to make the 

 very best possible lightning rod, his final advice was like the scriptural pas- 

 sage which enumerates a tantalizing variety of oaths but summarizes with the 

 injunction, "swear not at all." In various ways have Mr. Kedzie's labors as 

 professor of chemisty been beneficial to farmers, and scarcely less to fruit 

 growers, but notable instances are his analyses of manures, soils, forage plants, 

 as well as his several contributons on peach yellows, to the reports of this 

 society, (some of which were the very earliest information obtainable on the 

 subject to Michigan fruit growers) and those on other horticultu ral subjects. 

 Laterly his experiments with the growth of plants upon the northern pine 

 plains have been useful in the same direction. 



Dr. Kedzie's labors at the Agricultural College have been nearly co-extensive 

 with the college itself, all but the first ten of its more than 400 graduates 

 having been in his classes. He has seen the college grow from two inferior 

 buildings to its present fine pioportions, and helped mightily to secure its firm 

 establishment from an almost hopeless beginning. The whole faculty has 

 changed during his quarter of a century of service, but he remains, aged in- 

 deed, but in full vigor still, like the great oaks beneath whose shade his years 

 have clustered no faster then his honors. 



But Mr. Kedzie has other fame than that of a schoolman. Obtaining from 

 Oberlin College, at the age of twenty-four years, his degree of Master of Arts, 

 he two years later graduated in medicine at Michigan TJniversity, and in 1850 

 established himself in practice at Kalamazoo, going thence, soon after, to 

 Vermontville, where he remained as a physician until the opening of the war 

 of the Rebellion, when he became surgeon of the Twelfth Michigan Infantry. 

 In 1867 he became a member of the Michigan legislature. 



His distinguishments in the medical profession comprise membership in the 

 Michigan State Medical Society, of which he was president in 1874 ; of the 

 American Medical Association of whose Section on State medicine and public 

 hygiene he was chairman in 1876; and a member of the American Chemical 

 Society. He was president of the Michigan State Board of Health for a 

 number of years, until he declined renomination; also president of the 

 American Public Health Association in 1882. He has issued, for popular use, 

 many papers on public and household hygiene, whose great value is proved 

 by their extensive reproduction and circulation, some of them having been 

 translated into European languages. He also originated the scheme of sani- 

 tary conventions, on the same plan of his farmers' institutes, which is now 

 annually in operation with highly satisfactory results. 



Last year Prof. Kedzie was elected president of the American Association 

 for the advancement of scientific agriculture, a deserved recognition of his 

 service in this direction. The practical value of his knowledge of chemistry 

 as applicable to agriculture, was illustrated one day last spring, within the 

 observation of the writer. An Ottawa county vineyardist said to him, "Prof. 

 Kedzie, do I need to buy grouud bone for my grape vines, having at hand 

 plenty of wood ashes?" A full explanation of the properties of both fertili- 

 zers was promptly and cordially given, and the grape grower remarked after- 



• 43 



