ANNUAL MEETING AT NEVADA. 355 



He was a leading spirit in any good cause espoused. His life-long 

 devotion was mainly given to horticulture, in whose wide circles from 

 one side of the country to the other he was well known and justly es- 

 teemed. He and Henry Ward Beecher helped to organize the first 

 Horticultural Society west of the Allegheny mountains. He was seven- 

 teen years an honored member of the Missouri State Horticultural Soci- 

 ety, and several years its president; was at the organization of the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley Horticultural Association, and a prominent member; was 

 a member — and for some time the president — of Missouri Valley Horti- 

 cultural Society. In all these relations he was ever prompt, ready and 

 willing to discharge any and all of his duties. 



In his country's peril he was also a brave soldier and distinguished 

 ofificer, who baptised the battle-field with his own blood, from wounds 

 which helped to hurry him to his eternal home. Best of all, he was a 

 true soldier in the ranks of Christian men, and obedient to his Captain's 

 every command. 



.As his poor health grew worse, he sought relief in the milder climate 

 of California, but the end drew near and he only found that beautiful land 

 all fragrant with flowers, a good place to die. 



It was very fitting, that his friends, the American Horticultural So- 

 ciety, should kindly go to him there and hold their session almost at his 

 bed-side — the last of their meetings for him on earth. He was visited 

 just before his death by our President Evans and Secretary Goodman, 

 Holsinger and other members of the society, who found it a benediction 

 to themselves to behold the grand old man's readiness and patient wait- 

 ing for the peaceful end, slowly but so surely coming. He lived and 

 waited till June, and just when we had all gone to our homes from the 

 summer meeting in Holt County, Maj. Ragan went to his "better hom.e" 

 on the lOth of June. He died at the age of seventy-one. 



California wept when the good man died, and honored his remains 

 with distinguished obsequies. His body sleeps with the flowers which 

 know no winter Sweet be thy rest, our cherished, much loved friend. 



Profoundest feelings fill one thousand hearts in military and horti- 

 cultural circles, and fitting words fall like the sacred dew from the earn- 

 est lips of this nation's most honored son of the present, in commenda- 

 tion of the virtues of his life. 



Like Maj. Ragan's life, that of W. M. Hopkins was long and full of 

 good works. Much we might say of one, might well be said of both. 

 He was a native of Kentucky and to agriculture born. While in full vig- 

 or of manhood he came farther west and made Missouri the home and 

 the field of the best labors of his life, devoted to honest, successful till- 



