100 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The forenoon of the following day was devoted to routine business, the . 
election of officers, etc., and the afternoon to discussions pertaining to re- 
vision of fruit list, reports from committees and from visiting delegates 
frem adjoining states. The meeting closed in the evening with papers, reci- 
tations, music, etc., by the students of the School of Agriculture, which is 
ample assurance that the occasion was enjoyable in all respects. 
FURTHER TRIBUTE TO PETER M. GIDEON. 
A. W. SIAS, HARBOR VIEW, FLORIDA. 
Dear Fellow Members: On receiving the Jan. 19th number of the 
Minnesota Horticulturist, I read the sad news of the death of Peter M. 
Gideon, and about a dozen tributes to his sacred memory, that do him 
henor—without the least show of adulation. Should have been glad to have 
been in ‘on the ground floor” and to have heard those kind, heart-felt words 
spoken, and to have added my opinion of this great worker in not only the 
cause of horticulture, but also in the great cause of temperance and right 
living. Good men claim that it is never too late to speak a good word for 
Abraham Lincoln, and let us all claim the same for Peter M. Gideon. 
Fourteen years ago today I was acting president of your society, and I 
knew that I must do something liberal and great or misrepresent good 
Mr. Harris (whom I was acting for). So to use about the language of one 
of our young members, I proceeded to “water the stock” of the honorary 
life membership list by the nomination of Peter M. Gideon, Norman J. 
Coleman, R. L. Cottrell and F. K.Phoenix. One-half of this list have 
already passed over the mystic river. One has been honored with a seat 
in a president’s cabinet, perhaps the first horticulturist to ever get there. 
Phoenix is the same good old temperance, high grade worker that he al- 
ways was. It pays to be liberal. Our annual paying list of membership 
keeps pace with the honorary list. 
The Wealthy is a grand success over a wider range of country than any 
new fruit of my knowledge. After leaving Minnesota in 1890, I stopped 
three years in Colorado and found the Wealthy among the foremost in that 
state. ‘Ten states had the Wealthy on exhibition at the Omaha Fair,” says 
Bro. Philips. 
The Minnesota State Horticultural Society is non-partisan and non- 
sectarian—still I have no doubt that the Methodist wing of the society will 
lcok back to the day that we met Peter M. Gideon half way with open 
arms and fully restored him to the highest rank in our society, as a sort 
of compromise with spiritualism—‘‘a love feast” that augured no good. Be 
this as it may, when I grasped that warm hand, that had scattered seeds 
to bless mankind so freely, now cold in death, and that of Dr. Porter, who 
led him to us, the man who left such strong evidence of his architectural 
skill—and bump of location for an agricultural school half way between the 
two cities—truly he has been wonderfully successful in erecting unto himself 
a proud monument—could such a man have been mistaken in the attempt 
to help restore the old soldier to his former rank? He, too, has gone to his 
reward. I am unable to communicate with his spirit, but have no fears as 
to its safety and happiness. Our records show that the gigantic form of 
Geo. P. Peffer was “resurrected” to act with our committee in the restora- 
tion to his rank of our brother Gideon. Mr. Peffer’s tabernacle was laid 
aside some time since, but we do not believe that his high position among 
ba ee 
