@thebafflermag 1/2 For decades now, our 'applied agrobiodiversity' volunteers have been studying the grammar of the trees at the USDA pear repository, freeing material we’ve identified as ‘future heirlooms', into the commons. Gentle Joseph, retired now, is a much cherished elder in our circle.
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Copy of tweet here: Today, our volunteers cut scion at the world’s most diverse pear collection—the USDA's pear repository in Corvallis, OR. Frankly, decades in, it's a small civic miracle: a shared assent to the common good—and mutual trust, and long-earned friendship, carrying the whole thing.
2/ Millennials? The oldest European, as distinct from Asian variety we share, is a 2,000 year-old Roman pear. Don’t be duped. It takes not sentimentality, but substance, to outlast a passing show of cultures, languages and civilizations coming and going through a swinging door.
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Photograph of pear diversity - a dizzying array of sizes, shapes and colors - represented at one of our fall fruit shows. ‘Pound’ pear is the two pound giant, up-front-and-center.