Archived issues:    January 2010                       May 2009                       September 2009                          February 2010               June 2009                 October 2009                                                                    July 2009                  November 2009                          April 2009                         August 2009               December 2009                                                                                                  March 2010 NHC NEWS A Monthly Bulletin of the Northwest Horticultural Council A PORING MA N Samuel Johnson lived in 18th century London where by force of intellect and good judgment he became, and remains, one of the star figures of our common English literary heritage.  His life, as chronicled by his Scottish friend, James Bosworth, serves as the subject of one of the world’s great biographies. Johnson made many acute observations on life and the human condition.  He was a critic in the best sense of that word.  One time, according to a later essayist, in discussing with Boswell the writers William Congreve and William Shakespeare, Johnson used a comparison involving an orchard.  After giving much praise to a fine, mistake-free passage by Congreve, Johnson went on to robustly defend the unquestionable supremacy of Shakespeare, despite some occasional lapses by that poet and playwright: A few days later, in conversation with Boswell, he again talked of the passage in Congreve, and said, ‘Shakespeare never has six lines together without a fault.  Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.  If I came to an orchard, and say there’s no fruit here, and then comes a poring man, who finds two apples and three pears, and tells me, ‘Sir, you are mistaken, I have found both apples and pears,’ I should laugh at him: what would be the purpose?’  Johnson is not attacking Shakespeare; he is assuming his greatness…. The insignificance of Shakespeare’s faults, when put into proper context, is like the two apples and three pears; they are there, as the “poring man” says, but inconsequential to the bigger reality of the orchard-wide genius of William Shakespeare. ¨    EUROPE The European Union is still far from being the unified political and economic entity that its founders envisaged. Many in the aftermath of the blood-drenched wars fought in the last two centuries over that small part of the world’s landmass, had hoped that a common market and political integration would quiet that area’s militant nationalism, whether of the type exemplified by Prussian Germany or Napoleonic France. During a visit in February to Berlin for the international produce trade show Fruit Logistica, one was exposed to two examples―one technical and one monetary―of why the realization of a “United States of Europe” is still a long way off.   First was the frustration shown by European produce exporters at the practical problem of negotiating phytosanitary market access agreements with countries such as China.  These other countries understandably want to negotiate with one entity, if possible, but the member states of the EU maintain control of most phytosanitary issues at the national level.  So trade stalemates often ensue, since the EU has 27 sovereign nations as members. Second was a developing crisis involving the stability of the euro.  Greece, along with some other members of the euro-zone (16 nations), has not been keeping its financial house in order.  As a result, the euro was being rapidly revalued downward by the marketplace against other international currencies, such as the dollar and the yen.  How can the EU maintain a strong euro when political control of expenditures is in reality at the member state level?  Will Germans forever pay the debits run up by the Greeks? ¨    Travel Christian Schlect March 18 – Washington Apple Commission board meeting, Yakima, Washington. March 23-28 – United States Apple Association’s spring committee and board meetings, Washington, D.C.   Mike Willett March 9-10 – U.S./Korea Plant Health Bilateral, Portland, Oregon. March 16 – Northwest Fruit Exporters’ Cherry Commodity Committee meeting, Yakima, Washington. Deborah Carter March 9-11 – Meeting of Produce GAP Harmonization Technical Working Group, Irvine, California. Mark Powers March 16 – Northwest Fruit Exporters’ Cherry Commodity Committee meeting, Yakima, Washington. Dalton is a very unlikeable man.  When he was Minister of Economic Warfare, he was so unpopular with all his subordinates that they formed an ‘Apple Club’, each member being obliged to buy an apple in rotation, and place it on the doorstep, ‘to keep the Doctor away’. King’s Counsellor Abdication and War: The Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles 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