THE MINNESOTA 



HORTICULTURIST. 



VOL. 27. NOVEMBER, 1899. No. 11. 



In ]V[eii7oriaii^. 



FRANCIS WILLIAM LOUDON. 



Died Oct. 2, 1899. Aged 80 years. 



Died at his home in Janesville, Wis., on Oct. 2, 1899, Francis Wil- 

 liam Loudon, in the eighty-first year of his age. He was born in 

 Orange Co., Vermont, on Dec. 17, 1818. In the spring of 1841 he went 

 to Troy, N. Y., and in 1845 came to Wisconsin and located at Janes- 

 ville, where he has since resided, and during that time has been en- 

 gaged in the nursery business and the improvement of fruits by 

 the growing of seedlings. 



There are a few men to whose skill and perseverance we are 

 greatly indebted for a number of our best and most popular varie- 

 ties of fruits, that during their lives were not appreciated and hon- 

 ored as they should have been by the great public who has been 

 blessed by their works. They have sown for others to reap. Some 

 of them, like Ephraim Bull, who gave us the Concord grape, which 

 has revolutionized grape culture in this country and besides com- 

 fort and enjoyment has added millions to the wealth of the country, 

 spent long and unselfish lives in prosecuting their noble work and 

 have gone down to their graves unrecognized and unrewarded, but 

 leaving rich legacies to following generations. 



Mr. Loudon was a' frank, generous, modest and unassuming man, 

 and all his life an earnest and skilful horticulturist. He began the 

 pursuit early, planting seeds of an apple when but two years old, 

 and when twelve years old saw a tree grown from that seed well 

 loaded with fairly good apples. From letters written a month be- 

 fore his decease we find he was still enthusiastically engaged in the 

 loved work of his life. He was the originator of the Janesville 

 grape, the Jessie and many other strawberries and the Loudon rasp- 

 berry. Besides these he had originated other raspberries of great 

 merit that were not yet introduced, some eight or ten hardy cherries 

 and a number of most excellent grapes. A truly great and good 

 man has gone to his rest and, we believe, to rewards that were with- 

 held while he was with us, and his memory should be forever in the 

 hearts of the people who have been blessed by his life and work. 



J. S. Harris. 



