TRIBUTE TO PETER M. GIDEON. 2433" 
Now, this work of Mr. Gideon in originating the Wealthy apple has given 
him a national reputation. His name is going down to posterity with that of 
Ephriam Bull, the originator of the Concord grape, and many in our own 
state whose names I do not see fit to mention in this connection. It seems 
to me such work as that well merits the consideration we give it today, and I 
cannot in this short time tell you in detail of the work he has done. 
He has given us the Wealthy apple, the Gideon No. 6, the Martha crab, 
a variety regarded as the standard crab apple; he has done something of 
benefit to almost every man, woman and child in the colder sections of this 
country in producing these and other seedlings, of which I hope Mr. Elliott 
will be able to tell you more than I can. Aside from the large number of 
seedlings which he fruited, he sent out a large number of seedlings in 1889. 
I think it was ten thousand seedlings which he sent broadcast over the coun- 
try, selling them at one dollar per hundred. At the time it was done I did 
not pay much attention to it; I was new to the state, and I do not think it im- 
pressed our horticulturists generally. I think it showed that he was a man 
of foresight, and that he was not selfish; anyway, the result has been to 
cover the tables at our state fair with such a lot of seedling apples that we 
can hardly find room for them. He sent out something like ten thousand 
seedlings all over this section, and the consequence has been to stimulate a 
good many people who never would have attempted apple growing. 
The work of Mr. Gideon with those ten thousand seedlings is a living 
work today, and what he has started will be kept up until we have saved the 
good ones out. I had recently a most beautiful lot of apples sent me from 
Hanley Falls of those seedling apples. 
That work is going to live, and it is possible that the apple which will be 
the coming winter apple for this state will come out of those seedlings which 
are now in the hands of private individuals—and it may be possible that 
variety has been overlooked and has already fruited. 
Aside from the work Mr. Gideon did with apples, he was a general po- 
mologist. He was specially interested in flowers. I visited him a year or two 
ago last summer with Mr. Wedge, and some children came there from one of 
the boarding houses on the lake and wanted some flowers, and he seemed to 
think an apology was necessary to them that he could not give them to them 
right away. People around the lake could go there and get flowers at any 
time. His little house, in that bunch of sugar maples, surrounded with a 
peach orchard and with his Peter and Wealthy apple trees, the space between 
the house and road covered with perennial flowering plants—his house 
would, perhaps, meet the ideal of the horticulturist as no other place would 
be likely to meet it, and it seems to me that gives us a side of the man’s 
character that we could dwell upon, his love of flowers and putting himself 
out in giving them away. 
If you will think of his character you will remember that he did not ex- 
hibit at our fairs for premiums, never. For a number of years he refused to 
exhibit at all, but remember that he never exhibited for a premium! And 
there was something grand to me about the old man sitting there last autumn 
behind the table on which he had his exhibit of seedling fruits. It seems to 
me there was something grand and fitting that that old man, whom we all 
knew was poor, should sit there among his fruit, too proud to exhibit it for a 
- premium. That is the side of his character I like to think of the best. 
