390 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
versing a state to its remotest borders in quest of statistics,cions and choice 
specimens of fruit; exhibiting them at every fair and public place access- 
ible; organizing societies and suggesting fruit shows and special legisla- 
tion for tree planting and forest culture; laying his hand upon the State 
Horticultural Society, and breathing into its nostrils the breath of life; 
doing in its behalf at times the triple duties of statistical and corre- 
sponding secretaries; preaching wherever he went the new gospel of fruit 
growing to the masses harboring utter distrust of success, and infusing 
faith and enthusiasm into a gainsaying people;and amid all encountering 
such financial difficulties as might well appall the stoutest heart—he 
has taught us a new lesson of the capabilities of the man of faith and will. 
Mr. Harkness was a man of simple and economical habits, never indulging 
in the least personal luxury. He was also strictly honest. His greatest 
trial was his inability to meet his liabilities as they fell due. He is gone, 
but his successful life isours. When the fruits from our gardens gladden 
our eyes; when the shade trees he has planted around our homes rustle 
their chimes; when the flowers he loved distill their fragrance for our 
pleasure—let us remember the virtues of our friend: and let the young 
men listlessly sauntering about our streets from year to year, waiting for 
the clouds to pour fortune upon their heads,compare their lives with his.” 
Mr. Harkness, was united in marriage at Owatonna, July 15th, 1870, to 
Miss Mary C. Christianson, now Mrs. Casper Sands, of Crookston, Minn. 
O. F. BRAND. 
JOHN A. SALZER. 
DIED.AT LA CROSSE, WIS., JAN. 22, 1892. 
John A. Salzer, the well known florist and seedsman of La Crosse, Wis.., 
died at his home in La Crosse, after a lingering illness of Bright’s disease 
and an attack of la grippe, January 22, 1892, in the 69th year ot his age. 
Mr. Salzer was born in Dettinger, Germany, Dec. 8, 1823, spending 
his earlier years working in his father’s nursery where he became a skill- 
ful propagator of trees and acquired a great fondness for flowers. He 
came to America in his twenty-third year and settled at Galena, Ill. He 
located in La Crosse in 1866, where he soon after built the first green- 
_ houses and laid the foundation of the present business, the John A. Salzer 
Seed Co.—of which he is president and largest shareholder—and giving his 
whole time to the growing department of this largest commercial floristand 
seed business in the Northwest. Mr. Salzer was greatly esteemed by all 
who knew him as an energetic man of sterling integrity, never compro- 
mising conscience in any walk or business of life. For many years he was 
a German Methodist preacher of the gospel, and he organized and gavesub- 
stantial aid to a number of churches. He was liberal and unostentatious 
in his gifts to the poor, and toward the support of orphan asylums,homes 
for the aged, etc. He leaves three daughters and four sons to mourn his 
loss. Thus a good man has gone to his rest. His works remain with us, 
and the horticulture of the Northwest has been greatly advanced by his 
precept and example. 
J. S. HARRIS. 
