August 2011 NHC NEWS A Monthly Bulletin of the Northwest Horticultural Council ENGLAND AT WAR As England is well known for its gentle rural life and gardens, it is not surprising for one to see occasional horticultural references in memoirs on the English experience during the years of World War II. Two such examples are presented in a book of collected letters by Mollie Painter-Downes, entitled “London War Notes: 1939-1945.”  These letters were written from London for purposes of the author’s regular column in The New York Times. A note on The Battle of Britain between the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force: In the beautiful fruit-growing country, over which in happier days the Paris airliners peacefully droned, fag ends of last week’s raids upset the harvesting of the plum crop until exasperated farmers hit on the notion of digging trenches in their orchards so that the pickers could remain in the fields during the dogfights overhead, snatching another bushel or so at every lull. [August 25, 1940.] Describing the spring of 1944, on the cusp of the long-anticipated invasion of Europe, the author informs her readers back in the United States: Newspapers aren’t allowed to comment on the weather—at least until the information is too dated to help the enemy—but as a conversational topic in the countryside its behavior has run a close second to the invasion.  Dismayed rural folk have been bewailing a series of disastrous May frosts, which wiped out the famous Vale of Evesham berry and plum crops and blackened the blossoms of what promised to be a record yield in Kentish orchards.  The fruit growers regret that the official secrecy on weather conditions was not relaxed for once to give them a warning which might have saved some fruit.  The loss in this particular year, when all England is crowded out of both house and larder, is a serious one. A final example comes from The London Journal of General Raymond E. Lee: 1940-1941 wherein the U.S. general quotes Prime Minister Winston Churchill.  The background is the 1941 surprise landing in Scotland of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy.  To Churchill here was the first hard physical evidence of internal breakdown within the evil Nazi régime.  Or, as he put it:  “The maggot is in the apple!”   ¨    NHC Leadership The federal and international policy efforts of the Northwest Horticultural Council are overseen by nine trustees; tree fruit industry leaders appointed to our governing board by the Council’s funding members.  Current officers of our regional trade association are Mark Zirkle, chairman; David Smeltzer, vice chairman; and Dar Symms, immediate past chairman.  These three officers constitute the NHC’s Executive Committee.  In addition, two other standing committees help with our work, a Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Don Gibson, and a Foreign Trade Committee, chaired by Steve Reinholt. ♦ Travel   Christian Schlect August 1-5 – Thirty-first meeting of the Open-ended Working Group of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, Montreal, Canada. August 18-21 – USApple’s 2011 Apple Crop Outlook and Marketing Conference and meeting of the board of directors of the United States Apple Association, Chicago, Illinois. August 29-September 1 – Meeting of United Fresh Produce Association’s Food Safety Regulatory Oversight Committee, College Park, Maryland. Deborah Carter August 7-11 – Speaker at the 2011 Joint Meeting of the American Phytopathological Society and International Association for the Plant Protection Sciences, Honolulu, Hawaii. Mike Willett August 8-12 – North American Plant Protection Organization (NAPPO) fruit panel meeting, Ottawa, Canada. …and on the moderates who wanted to delay the process of change by taking no more than a preliminary and cautious peck at the electoral cherry.   Daniel Green Great Cobbett: The Noblest Agitator Northwest Horticultural Council 105 South 18th Street, Suite 105 Yakima, Washington 98901, USA   Voice: (509) 453-3193, Fax: (509) 457-7615 E-mail general@nwhort.org