THE MINNESOTA 



HORTICULTURIST. 



VOL. 35. MAY, 1906. No. 5 



SILAS DAYTON HILLMAN. 

 Died Nov. 27, 1905, Aged Sixty Years. 



Silas D. Hillman, third in a family of seven children of 

 George Washington and Chloe Dayton Hillman, was born at Green- 

 wich, N. Y., September 23, 1845, ^^^ died at Minneapolis, Minn., 

 November 2'j, 1905. 



Beautiful for situation was the old farm home, overlook- 

 ing the grandly picturesque valley of the Battenkill, whose sparkling 

 water winds in and out among green hills. To the east rise majes- 

 tic the Green Mountains of Vermont, visible for half the length of 

 that state ; on the west, somewhat dimmer and farther away, the 

 mountains of Saratoga and the frowning peaks of the Adirondacks. 



Here till twenty-one years of age he daily served, from the 

 time he could hoe a row or draw a line, from the tapping of the 

 first sugar-maple till the last ear of corn was husked and housed, 

 when winter's snows gave him a short respite to attend the district 

 school. At eighteen he had learned all that was taught in his 

 native school, at nineteen he faught in an adjoining district, and 

 the next winter taught in his home district the "best school they 

 ever had." 



At about sixteen he heard of shorthand, and, obtaining a standard 

 work upon the time and labor saving art, his enthusiasm and ap- 

 plication were such that in an incredibly short time he had trans- 

 ferred most that was valuable in theory and practice to his own 

 brain and fingers. His dictation practice was obtained from the 

 sermons he heard on Sundays in the Methodist church at Greenwich. 

 He never could have truly sung with Watts, "Much of my time has 

 run to waste," for he never wasted any ; and this habit of saving 

 time clung to him through life. Every moment was enriching his 

 mind. He never sat without book or pen unless in converse with 

 a friend. His life on the farm yielded him. too, its tribute in time 

 for meditation. He kept a diary and wrote poetry. Safe to say he 



