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TRIBUTE TO PETER M. GIDEON. 29 
regard that man higher than we do the accumulator of wealth or position, 
yet we make more noise about it when we honor him. Usually when we 
have passed that class of men, we let others go off the plane of existence 
without much notice or attention, except such as they receive on the part 
of their immediate friends or families. But this is an occasion totally unlike 
others. We are here today to commemorate the memory of a man who 
was really a benefit to his race and to the clime in which he lived. The 
great fortune that has been accumulated by somie man we honor may be 
dissipated; the great picture that made a painter famous may fade; a ma- 
chine invented by some inventor whom we honor may become antiquated or 
superseded in a short time; but the man who produces a fruit, for instance, 
-that will grow, that will flourish in a clime where else there would be no 
fruit, or where there was none before, he builds that which cannot be de- 
stroyed, which cannot be dissipated, which cannot be superseded, and 
hence he is a greater man in every respect. He is entitled to more of our 
consideration and our love than either of the others I have referred to— 
and it is the memory of such a man we are here to commemorate today. 
I will not attempt to enumerate any of Mr. Gideon’s achievements, which 
have already been spoken of by others. His name will be longest remem- 
bered in connection with the Wealthy apple. The Wealthy, named in honor 
of his wife, whose name was Wealthy. But the name has an infinitely 
broader signification than that, because it is really a mine of wealth on the 
farm, in the lives of children and grown people, and will be for all time to 
come. 
We talk of building a monument to Mr. Gideon. I would be glad to see 
it, provided it could be kept from the seclusion of the cemetery, as has 
been suggested here. If it could be put out somewhere where the daily 
life of the people could come in contact with it, then I would be glad to see 
a suitable monument erected. J would be glad to see his marble or bronze 
bust in our new capitol of the state; I would be glad to see any token of 
distinction conferred upon him. But it matters not. Mr. Gideon has built a 
monument to himself. They will appear this year and disappear, but the 
next year they will come again and disappear, and so they will keep coming 
perennially. Monuments, of which we have a type here (indicating a table 
of Wealthy apples), scattered all over this land where it was said a few years 
ago that apples could not grow at all. 
Two years ago, or less, I stood by the grave of Mr. Bull, the originator 
of the Concord grape, in the Concord cemetery in Old Concord. On the 
highest point of a pretty knoll, of what is known as Sleepy Hollow, in that 
cemetery, are the graves of Emerson and others, who have contributed to 
enrich the literature, not only of this land but of the world, and down a 
little way below that point I saw a native granite boulder. Set in that boulder 
is a little bronze tablet bearing this inscription: ‘Ephraim Wales Bull, 
Originator of the Concord Grape.” That was all. And I thought, as I 
stood there, that that grave ought to be put up there on the pinnacle with 
Emerson and the rest of them. They, it is true, had written poetry, had 
given philosophy that was read and loved all over the world, but he was a 
co-worker with them, in that he produced a fruit that was not only grown 
all over the world, but was grown in places where such fruit never grew 
before, and from that vine came other varieties of grapes that will enrich 
the fruits of the world as much as those great writers did the literature 
of the world. Yet who outside of horticulturists themselves know anything 
