September 2010 NHC NEWS A Monthly Bulletin of the Northwest Horticultural Council Mexico Mexico provides the tree fruit industry of the Pacific Northwest with its most valuable export destination.  Conveniently nearby in terms of the shipment of packed fruit, it is a growing consumer market with a population of over 111 million.  Its friendly people buy and enjoy our fresh apples, pears, and sweet cherries. On the imaginary scale that weighs problems versus commercial opportunities, we must remind ourselves of the good market our industry does enjoy in Mexico as our growers and shippers confront three serious problems associated with that land.  First, our obtaining an adequate and legal pool of harvest labor will not be fully addressed until comprehensive immigration reform is enacted in Washington, D.C.—reform that allows for a workable system for our orchardists to bring workers from Mexico.  Second, 20% retaliatory tariffs on apples, pears, and cherries need to vanish: the Obama Administration must find a quick solution to an unnecessary NAFTA trucking dispute with Mexico.  And, third, food safety visits to orchards within Washington state by Mexican officials occurred this past summer sparking a good amount of industry concern.  We must work with both Mexico and United States food safety and trade officials to iron out reasonable procedures and expectations for any future regulatory visits from our industry’s number one trading partner. Three big issues; one big market. ¨ And with Apples Rose   In “The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science,” published in 2008,  the author, Richard Holmes, traces the great advances in science made in Great Britain in the late 1700s and early 1800s by a vivid cast of brilliant, sometimes eccentric, seekers of truth and beauty.  One of these seekers was Sir Joseph Banks, explorer and president of The Royal Society. “The Age of Wonder” comments not only on science but on the changing culture of the times, as represented by poetry. Mr. Holmes notes in his book that Sir Joseph “might well have been amused by [Lord Bryon’s] nimble mockery of Newton and the story of the falling apple, which of course Byron associates with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.    When Newton saw an apple fall, he found    In that slight startle from his contemplation--    ‘Tis said (for I’ll not answer above ground    For any sage’s creed or calculation)--    A mode of proving that the earth turn’d round    In a most natural whirl, called ‘gravitation;’    And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,    Since Adam, with a fall or with an apple.  “Byron went on to praise the achievements of post-Newtonian science in his own elegant and bantering way.    Man fell with apples, and with apples rose,    If this be true; for we must deem the mode               In which Sir Isaac Newtown could disclose               Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road,    A thing to counterbalance human woes:         For ever since immortal man hath glow’d      With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon    Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon.”             [Don Juan, Canto the Tenth] Founded in London in 1660, this is the 350 anniversary year of The Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific academy.  It continues to this day to extend the frontiers of science, beyond the “unpaved stars”, as a fellowship of the world’s most distinguished scientists. ¨ Travel Christian Schlect September 12-17 – United Fresh Produce Association’s Washington Public Policy Conference, Washington, D.C. Mark Powers September 12-17 – United Fresh Produce Association’s Washington Public Policy Conference, Washington, D.C. Mike Willett   September 20-23 - Taiwan Apple Site Visit: Washington and Oregon   September 24-27 – CropLife America’s Government Policy Weekend, Naples, Florida Although Soviet government censors always added absurd subtitles to the films, [Ayn Rand] said―turning an ordinary American family dinner scene into a portrait of greed, for example, by labeling it ‘A capitalist eating well on profits wrung from his starving workers’―she and other Russians understood this to be nonsense, or ‘applesauce,’ as she called it. Anne C. Heller  Ayn Rand and the World She Made 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