30 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
about Ephraim Wales Bull, or ever heard of him, in fact? I thought of this 
in connection with Mr. Gideon. They talked here about his eccentricities 
of character and manner, but let us forget them. He was as little responsible 
for those things as is the man who is born with a physical deformity. So 
had Mr. Bull his idiosyncrasies, he had his peculiarities, he had his unpleas- 
ant characteristics. The characters of the two men were much alike, and 
the fate of the two men much alike. Mr. Bull died a public charge, living 
in a home provided for old men without means, and was buried at the public 
cost. His grapevine, the original vine, stands in the garden with the little 
house in which he lived and where he worked. The old vine looks like 
an old man who has done his work in life. There it is, moss grown, rugged 
and gnarly. It has given up its scions by the thousand. There is little left, 
yet on the little that is left I saw clusters of grapes half matured, as though 
the old fellow intended to attend strictly to business and die with his boots 
on. I said to the people of that classic town, ““You ought to be ashamed of 
yourselves in your neglect of that garden and that old vine. You should 
trim that garden, you should preserve that house and preserve that old vine 
as long as you can, and make it a point of attraction to this Mecca of yours 
to which so many people come every year. The same thing should be done 
with the surroundings and works of Peter M. Gideon. As one is entitled 
to great honor, so is the other, and as each is entitled to more honor than 
the getter of wealth, the painter of a great picture or the inventor of a new 
machine, so we should take upon ourselves this duty and see that we are not 
so neglectful of his works and surroundings as are those Concord people in 
regard to Mr. Bull, the originator of the Concord grape. 
Now, my friends, in conclusion, let me ask you to do this, just for one sol- 
emn moment: Let me ask you to put away your prejudice, let me ask you 
to forget your creeds, and for a moment let us all believe in Mr. 
Gideon’s religion. Let us believe that he still has a conscious ex- 
istence; that he is with us today; that he is listening to what is said of 
him. Let us believe that, because it will not only give us a keener pleasure 
in what we are doing, but it will make us feel that he knows that the work 
he did is appreciated by the people, notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of 
his hard life. The man who would not push the little toad aside from his 
path was not the man to harbor a hate in his breast. Mr. Gideon has sev- 
eral times said unkind things of me. I have forgotten them. I paid no at- 
tention to them, because I knew Mr. Gideon. I felt I could read and under- 
stand him. 
So I say, let us forget. Let us tell this departed spirit who stands here 
in our midst, listening to us now—I say, let us think it is so, let us believe it; 
and then let us send to him on the hither side of the grave where he now is 
a message, that we have forgotten everything that was unpleasant in his 
nature and character; that we remember only the true heart that was under- 
neath it all; we remember his work; we are thankful that he lived, and we 
send him this message: Well done, good and faithful servant; you lived to 
a purpose; you made the world better for having lived in it, and we pardon 
you freely for everything you did or thought that did not seem to us just, 
kind and neighborly. All of your peculiarities, all of your idiosyncrasies, all 
of that rough exterior, are forgotten now, and we remember only the soul 
that was in it and the determination that was behind it to do something to 
benefit the people of this Northwest by contributing to and enlarging its 
family of fruits. 
