Nick is meeting his scion requests, as usual. When we take work parties to Nick, we have traditionally made a point of helping him out - pruning, and so forth - as we are able. With this rescue effort, for example, we are endeavoring to label trees where labels are missing. Somewhat slowish work, but cutting and labeling works much quicker if people work in pairs. One cuts scion. The other tracks paperwork and trees, writes on masking tape, and writes new metal labels.

I'm not sure what you mean by slate-file.

n

Much obliged for the clarification, Joe. Lemme see if I can yet navigate the mysteries of the file upload button. Or please feel free to email me at: fellowservant at yahoo dot com and I will park the file on your directly. I haven't yet compared the slant file to the one in my possession, which was scanned by Shaun Shepherd the week before last.

n

Raather interesting gossip. I have just had word from Austin Jones, the young man who has observed Nick Botner's trees closely in recent times, living and working at his land - who now farms out of State. He tells me he will be in Yoncalla in about a week, for several weeks, to help Nick with scion requests. As you will note from the link in my first posting to this thread, Austin has his act together. Methinks the Cavalry is arriving. Thomas Merton, the American Trappist, said that the age of miracles is but the age of naturalness. Spearheart Farm is Assemblies of God land.

You're right, Marsha. They have no resouces to support such an initiative. Indeed, one of the big lessons for me of first lurking around the corridors as well as fields at the USDA's Corvallis repository has been learning just how grossly under-appreciated are the efforts of USDA scientists to protect and steward diversity. Even, dare I say it, within the organization itself. Such lack of support is not peculiar to our shores. Kim Hummer, the affable bigwig of the Corvallis Repository, and a world authority on currants, among other crops (and a highly regarded martial artist, wouldn't ya know),also happens to be the Big Kahuna of the International Society for Horticultural Science - essentially, the professional group for Plant Geeks Across The Globe. She has long-standing relationships with repository stewards, globally. In my conversations with her, it is clear she and her cohorts face a common challenge the world over. Many, if not most repositories, are struggling. Some, desperately so. Bluntly put, the belief or notion that governments across the world are responsibly stewarding diversity is a delusion. A very dangerous one. What I have witnessed, through my own eyes, is a tiny, and I mean tiny group of deeply concerned, and profoundly knowledgeable scientists struggling with great courage to protect what little they are able, confronted by a dominant paradigm which consistently undervalues, underfunds, and undercuts a foundational cultural obligation to the health and future of the world and humanity. The ratchet only ever appears to tighten.

In this light of course, the HOS propagation fair, and other grassroots efforts assume a significance deeper than initial appearances might suggest. Joseph Postman's remit in Corvallis, for example, is to protect pear diversity - not to trial fruit or pro-actively push 'new' pear varieties upon the world. For industrial reasons, the pear industry isn't interested/able to trial or support pear diversity either. And One Green World pulling a red-fleshed pear out of the 1000 pear cultivars in Corvallis does not an ecological phenomenon or movement make.

The evidence is strong and consistent: research and responsible stewardship, the truly engaged support of diversity, is only ever going to happen when it includes the grassroots as a primary, committed, engaged element. That's simply the way the cards stack up. Locally, of course, a whole slew of factors - our climate, the proud history of the HOS, Nick Botner's collection, the presence of the Corvallis repository, a long, dynamic tradition of experimental fruit propagation - make us better-placed than just about anywhere worldwide to meet such an opportunity and challenge. We sit, after all, upon two of the most diverse fruit collections on the face of the planet, both stewarded by enormously supportive souls. Meanwhile, there is no cavalry waiting in the wings.

Goodness, it would be easy to perceive such a challenge as a burden. But my sense is we find ourselves remarkably well-placed locally to reframe the problem in a way that invites solution. What I have discovered in my engagement with vegetable crops, for example,

[url:rb3uib87]http://www.seedambassadors.org/Mainpages/futureoffarming.htm[/url:rb3uib87]

is that when my stewardship ethic transcends the accepted diktats of our dominant cultural MO, I am freed, literally, into an ecological territory lying beyond the reach of for-profit approaches to living well. In this cultural landscape, entirely novel potentials and possibilities, previously hidden, reveal themselves. What do I mean? To harp on about it...industry isn't remotely interested in July-bearing pears, for example. These may be simply exceptional fruit, but the pears are small, fragile, don't store and, I suspect, we need two-to-three varieties in hand to 'guarantee' an annual crop. No accountant will go near them. Meanwhile, the Repository has strong, international diversity in early pears, totally 'untested' and, for the most part, utterly unknown to fruit enthusiasts upon these shores. In other words, we sit, uniquely, upon a locally-proven, lip-smacking opportunity to add a beautiful new 'Type' to our own diets and those of future generations. And only, as it happens, through supporting the cause of global biodiversity. Stacking functions, we call it in permaculture. And if not us, who?

Some further context. It appears commonsensical to concentrate the great majority of the 700 Bud-9's in the safe hands of the HOS' grafting teams around Portland. Joanie Cooper should be picking them up this week and returning in triumph to Portland. These rootstocks come to us as the result of a generous non-charitable donation from Janet and Jerry Russell of Eugene. God bless their little cotton socks, as my mother used to say. If you play a role in HOS on-the-ground grafting teams, you may well find these rootstocks passing through your hands before too long. Keep those fingers safe, please.

As per a rescue purchase, yes, that may address one significant aspect of our challenge (though we would still need someone to manage the collection - please see my earlier posting relating to Austin Jones, the gentleman who will be making a short stay with the Botner's this very week. http://www.seedambassadors.org/avalon/n ... rchard.htm

In the off-list conversation which first grew up around efforts to tackle the Spearheart Farm conundrum, a core group of HOSers talked through a variety of options available to us. Will Newman, the Research and Education Director for the Oregon Sustainable Land Trust was involved in our early brainstorming. OSALT is designed to protect lands such as Nick's, and to support them in doing research and education centered around sustainable agriculture. If funding for a purchase becomes available, we do therefore potentially have the necessary legal and advisory support to make the process as painless as possible. Efforts were indeed made to secure funds for a purchase but there came a point when we realized we could no longer wait on the appearance, check book in hand, of a hoped-for savior. Grafting up the Collection as best we are able is a project we are now two-springs into. One further wrinkle to the tale - Nick and Carla's land abuts the Applegate Property url]http://applegatehouse.com/[/url], whose stewards are alert to our efforts, and to the pressing cultural and ecological imperatives of saving Nick's collection for posterity. Perhaps there may be a way of rolling the land into an existing non-profit which works well for both Apples and Applegates?

Gossip. I was at the USDA repository in Corvallis on Friday and was gratified to note that my posit that, just now, our bold little grassroots initiative probably amounts to the largest rescue effort of fruit diversity in the world, was confirmed by someone in a position to know otherwise. That nod, I sense, spoke volumes about a community of interest who have spent decades building the expertise, relationships, wherewithal and impetus necessary to make this vital act of responsible stewardship happen. Passionate orcharding, I tell ya.