282 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the many visitors on that occasion. My first impressions of him 

 were that he was a man possessed of sterhng integrity and good 

 abihty, and from that hour we became fast friends. The objective 

 points I found in his character were that he was too modest and un- 

 assuming where only his own interests were concerned, and that 

 he would permit other and less worthy men to push him aside and 

 step in ahead ; and too conscientiously honest to compete with that 

 class of unscrupulous tree venders who at that period were working 

 the tree business for all there was in it, selling unknown auction 

 •Stocks of trees at 50 cents, $1.00 and upwards each, while much of 

 iiis carefully grown stock remained on his hands unsold. I am 

 iglad to know that the young man, after long association with me, 

 has to a certain extent been able to overcome this modesty, and is 

 now aggressive and even pugnacious in defending his rights, while 

 his reputation for honesty remains untarnished. 



"On tjie morning of October 4th, 1866, when the venerable 

 D. A. Robertson broached the question of organizing a "State 

 Fruit Growers' Association," our friend Sias was one of the first 

 to second the proposition, and with Wm. Somerville, R. S. Cotterell, 

 I. W. Rollins and several others, rendered valuable assistance in 

 organizing the society which has become the State Horticultural 

 Society of today, and ever since he has remained a steadfast friend 

 and faithful worker in our ranks. 



"My impression is that he acted as secretary of the preliminary 

 meeting of organization. He has since served years and has always 

 been found promptly at the post of duty. He has always been an 

 earnest advocate of the planting of ornamental shade trees, and 

 today the city of Rochester owes much of the beauty of its streets, 

 lawns and homestead surroundings to the precepts and example 

 of our worthy friend. At his home on College Hill are growing 

 forty varieties of the pine family and almost every variety of native 

 and foreign deciduous tree that is hardy enough to endure this 

 climate. The grounds have been well kept and the arrangement 

 shows skillful landscape gardening and successful tree planting. 

 Many of the most successful orchards of southern Minnesota have 

 been planted with trees from his nursery. As an orchardist his 

 work has been largely experimental. His orchard contains over 

 fifty varieties of Russian apples, a still greater number of American 

 and their seedlings, and something like forty of the Siberians- and 

 their hybrids, besides pears, plums and cherries in numerous varie- 

 ties. In 1882, 103 varieties produced fruit. What the final result 

 of the experiments carried to completion would have been it is im- 

 possible to tell. On August 21, 1883, the great tornado that swept 

 •over Rochester and its vicinity, leaving desolation, ruin and death 

 in its track, uprooted one-half of the trees in his promising experi- 

 mental orchard and left the remainder in a sorry plight. In a mo- 

 ment, as it were, the treasures he had been years in collecting 

 were almost annihilated, and the most thorough experimental work 

 that had at that time been undertaken in the state, with all its hopes 



