February 2008 NHC NEWS A Monthly Bulletin of the Northwest Horticultural Council E.B. WHITE E. B. White, who died in 1985, is not known to all these days—yet he was one of the most talented American essayists of the last century.  While White’s name may not be at the front of most minds, his work is lasting.  Writers and students still buy his “Elements of Style” under the authorship of Strunk and White.  Today’s grade school children listen in wonder to Mr. White’s “ Charlotte ’s Web.”  And those with a streak of humor still remember his famous caption to a carton in the New Yorker magazine: “It’s broccoli, dear.’  ‘I say it’s spinach, and I say to hell with it.’” In reading the revised edition of the “Letters of E.B. White” (2006), one comes across more than a few references to tree fruits.  Mr. White spent some time in the Pacific Northwest after graduation from Cornell in the spring of 1921 and had a life long affinity for the outdoors.  On his farm in Maine he raised many animals and had a small orchard. One day on rough travel west in 1922 with a friend, he reported within a letter from Yakima , Washington , after an adventure in crossing the Columbia River on a car ferry near Kennewick : “And here we are in Yakima . ‘Heigh, ho; heigh ho; heigh ho!’ calls Mr. Van Vliet at six thirty in the morning.  And we get up and eat tremendous cantaloupes and innumerable bacon and eggs and hie to the pear orchards, where we pick barlett pears at 30 cents and hour for ten hours.  Or else we roll over and go to sleep again, awakening in time to go swimming in the afternoon.” Back in New York City in 1926, he started a letter by saying, “Now that the harvest moon is on the way, now that I am back from across the sea, now that Yakima pears are being hawked in the quiet cool gutters of Thirteenth Street —I can write you a letter.” In 1958 he thanked a woman (Daise Terry) for bringing him some fruit: “You were a daisy to send such pears and I am just about to surround another one.  We bring them to the stage of ripeness where they not only flow easily down the throat but they run down your chin, too.  It’s called runoff by us farmers.” ¨ INDUSTRY’S CRISIS RESPONSE If a crisis event that directly affects one of our industry’s three main fruit crops should occur in the marketplace, the lead on handling any industry-wide situation would be the Washington Fruit Commission/Northwest Cherry Growers for sweet cherries, the Pear Bureau Northwest for pears, and the United Sates Apple Association domestically for apples.  With apples, if the incident arises in the foreign marketplace then the Washington Apple Commission and the United States Apple Export Council will handle the matter. Whether the event is ignited by media; a public interest group with a policy agenda to drive; by local growers seeking to protect their markets from competition;—or, a real problem, if fruit grown in the Pacific Northwest is involved, the Northwest Horticultural Council and its staff will play active roles in either leadership or support of the responsive activities of the promotion arms of our industry. ¨ Travel   Christian Schlect February 2-5 – Meeting at the U.S. Mission to the European Union, Brussels , Belgium . February 6-9 – Meetings of both the Freshfel Europe’s Import and Export Division and World Apple and Pear Association, as well as attendance at Fruit Logistica’s Fresh Produce Forum, Berlin, Germany. Mike Willett February 4 – Meeting of WSDA’s Apple Maggot Working Group, Ellensburg , Washington . February 20 – Speaker at the annual Wilbur-Ellis grower meeting, Chelan, Washington. February 21-22 – Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission’s Northwest Pear Research Review, Wenatchee , Washington . February 28 – Meeting of the Pest Management Transition Program Advisory Committee, Ellensburg , Washington . Mark Powers   February 2-5 – Meeting at the U.S. Mission to the European Union, Brussels , Belgium . February 6-9 – Meetings of both the Freshfel Europe’s Import and Export Division and World Apple and Pear Association, as well as attendance at Fruit Logistica’s Fresh Produce Forum, Berlin, Germany. Lilacs and apple blossoms are all ready to spring, and the roadsides are all alight with wild pear and cherry…. Letters of E.B. White Revised and Updated by Martha White 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