2 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



culture, and thought it far better for a growing boy to spend the 

 spring and summer in open air employment than in the school- 

 room. The growing season of each year was therefore spent by 

 his son in work about the family orchard and garden, and in as- 

 sisting in various improvements about the place. Thus an in- 

 herited taste for rural pursuits was strengthened and intensified 

 by such employments under the direction and encouragement of 

 one who had an unusual appreciation of the beautiful in nature. 

 One of the books in his father's library that attracted his most 

 eager interest and was read and re-read with his Robinson Crusoe 

 and Uncle Tom's Cabin was that classic in nature's literature 

 "Downing's Landscape Gardening." 



At the age of sixteen the youth Clarence entered the University 

 of Minnesota, then a struggling school under the management of 

 Prof. W. W. Folwell, whose kindly commendations and cheerful 

 incentives to the higher ideals of living were one of the strong- 

 formative influences of this period of his life. After three years 

 spent in the scientific course, the death of his step-father and the 

 failing health of his mother seemed to require his presence, as the 

 eldest child, at home. 



In 1876 he moved to a farm one mile southeast of the city and 

 began the occupation of a general farmer, paying some special at- 

 tention to the raising of draft horses. His natural bent toward 

 horticulture, however, kept him planting and improving his place, 

 and for his own convenience he soon found himself with a small 

 nursery of evergreens and ornamental trees. The sale of the surplus 

 from this led him by degrees into the commercial nursery busi- 

 ness, which in the year 1900 had assumed a magnitude that made 

 it seem necessary to transplant it to a soil better adapted to the 

 purpose than the cold heavy clay upon which it was begun. In 

 that year he therefore left the home of his first choice, endeared to 

 all his family by the many ties of a long residence, and moved to 

 a tract on the opposite side of the city which a variety of soils 

 seemed to mark as especially in<^ended for nursery purposes, and 

 where the finest old orchard in that section, and a situation of un- 

 usual sightliness, does much to make the family feel at home in their 

 new location. 



Mr. Wedge's record as a member of this society is very well 

 known to all the older members. His name first appears on the roll 

 in the year 1884, and with the possible exception of one or two 

 years he has been an annual member ever since. His name first 

 appears as an ofiicer of the society in 1891, when he was elected 

 vice-president for the first congressional district, continuing in this 



