THE MINNESOTA 



HORTICULTURIST. 



VOL. 31. JANUARY, 1903. No. i. 



'B 



iograpl^y. ^vm^H^ 



CLARENCE WEDGE, T^oTN^^^^^ 



ALBERT LEA. MINN. H XK*' 



The subject of this sketch was born June 30, 1856, in one of a 

 group of farm houses in Waupun township, Fond du Lac county, 

 Wisconsin, commonly known at that time as "Wedge Prairie," the 

 only child of Lucius P. and Mary F. Wedge. His ancestry traces 

 through both parents to Connecticut puritan stock. The farm which 

 his father had preempted and improved was sold soon after his 

 birth, and a portion of the proceeds invested in the prospective 

 frontier town of Albert Lea, Minn. 



After the death of his father, which event occurred in 1858, his 

 widowed mother resolved to come to this state and make her home 

 where she could the better look after the interests of a very doubt- 

 ful investment. In the summer of 1859 with her infant son she 

 therefore made the journey, by river to Red Wing, and by stage 

 to Albert Lea. The earliest recollections of the subject of this 

 sketch are therefore connected with the "johnny cake" times when 

 the Indian, the "prairie schooner" and the ox team were objects of 

 every day observation. 

 ^ A few years later his mother married Augustus Armstrong, a 

 rj. young lawyer and surveyor of the village of Albert Lea, who after- 

 : Awards became one of the leading public men of that section of the 

 - -^ state. The memory of his kindness and wisdom the step-son treas- 

 V.' ures as one of the best of blessings. 



.-- His early schooling was had under very much the same cir- 

 cumstances as those of other children of that period in Minne- 

 sota. His step-father had broad ideas of education, approaching 

 very closely those now embodied in the Minnesota School of Agri- 



