January 2010 NHC NEWS A Monthly Bulletin of the Northwest Horticultural Council EDEN Great writers often refer to apples as they struggle to convey an understanding of man’s origin and fate.  Milton and Emerson provide two such examples, as noted by the authors of two recently published books. Henry Hitchings in his “The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English” (2008) cites John Milton, the author of “Paradise Lost” for the importance of Latin to the development of the English language: One of the reasons for his use of what can seem very indirect Latin expressions was a concern to dignify a well-worn story; Satan refers to the ‘apple’, but Milton, avoiding the trivializing effect of repetition, calls it ‘the fruit of that forbidden tree’ and ‘that defended Fruit.’  Milton’s diction perfectly shows how the Latine resources of English can be used to add scientific and moral resonance to everyday objects and experiences.” Ralph Waldo Emerson is the subject of “First We Read: Then We Write” (2009) by Robert D. Richardson: Emerson, now in his late thirties, was full of energy and confidence in what he called ‘these flying days.’  ‘I dreamed,’ he wrote in his journal, ‘that I floated at will in the great ether, and I saw this world floating also not far off, but diminished to the size of an apple.  Then the angel took it in his hand and brought it to me and said, ‘this must not thou eat.’  And I ate the world.’ This startling image, of a sort of global Eucharist, which Emerson caught out of a dream before it could dissolve, is a New World apple story, a mythogentic moment that can stand with the stories of Adam and Eve, Atlanta, and Isaac Newton. ¨   FOOD SAFETY When members of the Senate and House of Representatives return in January to Washington, D.C., food safety reform is a likely candidate for early attention. Under the legislation now teed up for Congressional action, there will be an expansion of Food and Drug Administration’s oversight into produce fields and packing houses.  In responding to FDA’s expected proposals for setting new and mandatory good practice rules, there will be a critical need for scientific research to help provide answers to a myriad of commercially relevant food safety questions, such as the real risk level, if any, of irrigation water in conveying unwanted human pathogens on harvested tree fruit. To help answer practical food safety questions related to tree fruit production, our industry is looking to the Center for Produce Safety for help.  Located in Davis, California and led by Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli, CPS is an effort started in 2007 by the nation’s fruit and vegetable industry to coordinate and fund relevant research on emerging food safety issues for growers and shippers. The NHC is working with the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission in the attempt to secure $250,000 in funding support for CPS from the 2010 USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant program as conducted by the Washington State Department of Agriculture. ¨   Travel Christian Schlect   January11-14 – Annual meeting of the Minor Crop Farmer Alliance and U.S. Apple Association’s Public Affairs Committee meeting, Washington, D.C. January 19-23 – National Council of Agricultural Employers’ Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. January 28 – Meeting of Washington tree fruit industry executives, Ellensburg, Washington. Mike Willett January 11-14 – Meeting of the Minor Crop Farmer Alliance’s Technical Committee, Washington, D.C. January 15 – Speaker at the Cherry Institute, Yakima, Washington. Deborah Carter   January 7 – Speaker at the annual growers meeting of G.S. Long Company, Hood River, Oregon. January 12 - Speaker at the annual growers meeting of Wilbur-Ellis, Yakima, Washington. January 19 - Speaker at the annual growers meeting of G.S. Long Company, Yakima, Washington. Mark Powers   January 7 – Washington State Department of Agriculture’s International Marketing Program Advisory Committee meeting, Seattle, Washington. January 19 - Speaker at the annual growers meeting of G.S. Long Company, Yakima, Washington. January 20 – WSDA Fruit & Vegetable Program Advisory Board meeting, Olympia, Washington He is so exceedingly polite and smiling that I deduce he shuns intimacies.  He is rather bent from the waist like an old apple tree. James Lees-Milne Diaries, 1942-1954 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