THE GIDEON MEMORIAL FUND. 25 



by the opinion that I should use my time in speaking of him as a 

 man with advanced horticuUural endowments, to the end that our 

 successors and posterity, when we shall have passed along to them 

 the record of his work for their examination, may learn from us, 

 his neighbors and associates, what manner of worker he was, what 

 was the peculiar life and the experience that made him Gideon, and 

 be able to see and understand the lessons to be drawn from his 

 life work. Of his services alone they can judge without contempor- 

 aneous testimony, for his works are following him. 



There are others who saw more of him in the common walks 

 of life than I did ; yet I knew him well, was a visitor at his home and 

 he at mine, nearly a hundred miles apart, and I had his confidence; 

 and during our meetings, socially and otherwise, there were occa- 

 sions when, under great trial, the genuineness, the true ring of him, 

 were unmistakable. 



No words that I can select will adequately express my admira- 

 tion for the heroes of common life who, knowing thefnselves, hon- 

 oring themselves, sure of themselves, having beneficent life pur- 

 poses, can follow their own ideal, endure criticism, misunderstand- 

 ing, estrangement, detraction, poverty and all "the slings and arrows 

 •of outrageous fortune" that may threaten them, and yet 

 "Along the cool, sequestered vales of life 

 Have kept the noiseless tenor of their way." 



And wdien we find a man of this sort, whose aim has been so 

 high that the lofty flight of his purpose has struck an orbit round 

 and round the world, till in its eccentric path it has infolded all hu- 

 manity and brought down blessings in showers like the Leonids of 

 November, but more constant, admiration rises to veneration. 



Peter M. Gideon came as near to being an exemplar of a prac- 

 tical altruism as any man I ever knew. 



In the year 1884, in a summer visit at his Lake Minnetonka 

 home, he showed me three very promising seedling apple trees 

 in the State Experimental Orchard, of which he was the superin- 

 tendent, under a small salary paid by the state. These three trees 

 were then in full bearing, but their fruit not yet mature enough to 

 show their color or quality. Waiting till the earliest variety would 

 be ripe, I then persuaded the governor of Minnesota to go with me 

 and see for himself what Mr. Gideon w^as doing to earn his salary, 

 for a movement was already on foot to take it away from him. 



Examining the trees again at this time, I saw an opportunity 

 to help him make some money for use in his old age, and a few 

 weeks later went back there backed by a responsible firm, and in 



