446 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY-. 



working, and I want you to pitch into me when I get through. 

 That will liven things up a little." He liked to see things move 

 along. After he read his paper I did pitch into him. A stranger 

 was in the room. On the way to lunch he asked Mr. Long, the re- 

 porter, "Who is that fellow who spoke after Mr. Dartt?" Mr. Long 

 told him who it was. The man said, "I should think he would be 

 ashamed to talk to Mr. Dartt like that, one of our oldest members. 

 He said some things that many men would take as an insult." Mr. 

 Long said to him, "I guess you will find that it made no difiference. 

 You will probably see them coming down to dinner together." He 

 was right, we did go down to dinner together ; it made no difference 

 at all. 



I liked Mr. Dartt. He was a guest at my home many times ; 

 my children liked him. He was odd in some things. One reason 

 why I knew him better than the others was because he came from 

 Wisconsin. He used to attend our meetings, and we felt that we 

 had quite an interest in him. Last year I missed him in this meet- 

 ing, and my mind was wandering down to Owatonna and wondering 

 how he was. As soon as the meeting was over I took the train for 

 Owatonna. Mr. Cashman met me at the depot and took me to his 

 house. He knew me when I came into the room, but he was in a 

 pretty bad condition and could not speak. His daughter insisted 

 that I stay over night, and before night he improved so that he 

 could speak a few words to me. The next morning I went in to see 

 him, and he was so he could speak a little. He asked me about 

 the meeting and what they said about the station. He also asked 

 about Mr. Elliot and Prof. Green, and he finally said to his daugh- 

 ter, "I cannot visit with Mr. Philips ; I cannot talk with him. You 

 go to my trunk and get out that old diary I have there that I brought 

 from Wisconsin. Let him take that and go into the other room 

 and read it. That will tell him what I did from the time I was a 

 young man until the present time in horticulture. He will enjoy 

 that better than talking to me." He could hardly move in his chair. 

 He said to his daughter, "You go out of the room" (he was al- 

 ways contrary) "and Mr. Philips will go." I went out and sat 

 down and read that diary. I found he began it in 1856. I would 

 have liked to have kept it, but his daughter wanted to take it with 

 her to California as a keepsake. 



I went through the park, I noticed his improvements, I could see 

 what interest he had taken in horticulture — everything the man was 

 connected with showed his characteristics. He was somewhat 

 peculiar, and there were three things that he despised : those were 

 a drunken man, a man that was spitting tobacco spit all around him 

 and a dog. He did not like a dog. I used to talk to him about it, 

 and I told him there were good dogs and bad dogs, but I could not 

 change his mind. He did not like those three things. You go to 

 Owatonna into the room where he lay sick and where he died, and 

 you can see something of the fruits of his work. He took the first 

 Scotch pine that he had planted and had them sawed up into lumber, 

 and his room was fitted up with that lumber. The beautiful park 

 that he left to the people of Owatonna will give them reason to re- 

 member him for a long time. He laid out that park himself, he 



