THE HEROES OF MINNESOTA HORTICULTURE. 421 



One of the fine heroic figures that I wish I might have known 

 better was Colonel Stevens, of this city. His spirit seemed fairly 

 aglow with the fires of patriotism. Nothing was too good for 

 Minnesota, and he was ever watching that nothing good slipped 

 by unnoticed. He was not so far as I know, an experimenter, but 

 rather a patron of the men who were doing such work, giving 

 to them all the cheer and encouragement they so much needed. 

 About a year before he died it was my pleasant duty to be one of 

 a committee appointed by the society to visit him in his declining 

 days, and I was proud of him. Not a word about ill health, but 

 the light of an eternal life beaming from his cheerful eyes, as 

 he eagerly questioned about the success of the meeting and the 

 prospects of some of the new fruits that were then being dis- 

 tributed in the state. You cannot think of such a man as dead. 

 There is a spiritual quality there that defies the arch enemy, an 

 impregnable citadel behind the outward man that none but God 

 may enter. 



With all the patient, earnest endeavor of men in and out of 

 our society, how incomplete would have been their efforts without 

 the organizing work of Professor Green. Here was indeed a 

 genius magnificently endowed and equipped for giving horti- 

 culture the standing in the state to which it was entitled. When 

 I read that passage in the scriptures, "Rejoiceth as a strong man 

 to run a race," I am reminded of the exuberance of life and 

 spirits that seemed always to animate his person. His strong, 

 resourceful grasp after the things necessary for carrying out 

 his purposes for good have a remarkable likeness in the states- 

 manship of that great American who was so largely instrumental 

 in lifting our country to a higher plane of political living. I 

 think of them often as two of a kind. A natural executive, bold, 

 aggressive, determined, and withal of as gentle a spirit as a 

 child. That he should have been taken away from us in the 

 prime of life and usefulness, with every avenue of opportunity 

 opening to him, is one of the mysteries hid from mortal eyes. We 

 will be thankful for the few years that he was given to us, and 

 those of us whose privilege it was to live near him will treasure 

 in memory every hour that we spent by his side. 



To no one of those who have left us are we more indebted 

 for the prosperity that our society now enjoys than to our former 

 president, Wyman Elliot. In every enterprise, business or so- 

 cial, there must be some few who are in a special way responsible 



