HEROES OF MINNESOTA HORTICULTURE. 419 



Heroes of Minnesota Horticulture. 



CLARENCE WEDGE, ALBERT LEA. 



The real hero is the child of adversity, the man of faith and 

 patience, with a vision of great things beyond the sight of mortal 

 eyes. Our heroes are our most precious inheritance — the jewels, 

 the talismans, that have been passed down to us from generation 

 to generation, that we might wear them next to our hearts to 

 ward off the base insinuations of a vulgar world. God knows 

 we have need of them, for he has filled his book with the finest 

 examples, and the songs and stories of every race worthy the 

 name echo their achievements: David fleeing from Saul arid 

 scorning to end his troubles by taking the life of the anointed 

 of God; Elijah unafraid going to meet a hostile king and his 

 four-hundred false prophets in the might of truth alone; 

 Washington holding his ragged, starving troops together that he 

 might wear out the forces of the invader — have peopled the 

 imagination of thousands, giving them strength to meet the 

 emergencies of life with courage, and keeping them true and 

 faithful through long years of struggle and heart-wringing en- 

 deavor. And so the race of heroes never dies, and yesterday and 

 today they live with us and may be found wherever there is 

 a great task to do, a call to some high achievement. 



The life of the pioneer has much in it to bring out the 

 heroic in man. The single-handed struggle with the elements 

 in the open prairies and trackless forests, the never-ceasing 

 watch against a savage foe, the quest for plants and trees that 

 will fit his soil and bring food and comfort to his family, are 

 activities that bring into play the highest qualities of brain and 

 heart. There is no eight-hour day for him, no regular routine 

 with an assured pay day, no beaten path to success, but rather a 

 great adventure with many keen disappointments, many hopes 

 deferred. Grizzled, weather-beaten, custom-defying veterans 

 were they. Never one of them too proud to fight but rather 

 glorying in their unending conflicts with nature or men or mea- 

 sures that seemed to stand across their way. 



It has been my good fortune to know many of the men 

 of the heroic age of Minnesota horticulture. To know them in 

 a comprehending way was to love them. Their spirits seemed 

 always freshened by the prairie winds, their hearts warmed with 

 the glow of a perpetual sacrifice. They were as a rule remarkably 

 free from the degrading habits and the conventional vices of 



