THE MINNESOTA 



HORTICULTURIST. 



VOL. 29. JANUARY, 1901. No. 1. 



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ioorapl^y. -o.s^'Jt 



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EX-SECY CHARLES Y. LACY. 



LONGBEACH, CAL. 



Charles Youdan Lacy, the subject of this sketch, was born in 

 Monroe county, New York, in the year 1850. His mother was born 

 in Yorkshire, England, but came to western New York while yet 

 a young girl. His father, as also his grandfather, was a native of 

 New York and a farmer. 



Study and hard work were intimately mixe'd in his earlier years. 

 He was taught to read and spell by his mother and later attended 

 the "district school," helping with the numerous "chores" of a large, 

 stock of horses, sheep and cattle, mornings and evenings. He was 

 following the harrow at eight years of age and driving a mowing 

 machine at ten. 



In 1865 his father moved to the adjoining county of Livingston, 

 and thereafter, until his nineteenth year, Charles attended the Union 

 School at Avon. He had easily kept even witli most of his school- 

 mates in their studies, and now he all but decided to give up study 

 in harmony witn the notion, more common then than in this day, 

 that a limited education was sufficient for a farmer. About this 

 time Cornell University, with its College of Agriculture, opened 

 ^ts doors, and with his father's permission Charles entered for a 

 2iwo years' course, which was offered in agriculture. A very short 

 •Oattendance at the university served to expand his ideas of the use 

 "•^and value of an education. He continued his studies through a four 

 ^years' course and graduated in 1873. 



