Adopt an Endangered Food Plant
Posted by R. J. O’Hara for the Collegiate Way
1 May 2008 (collegiateway.org) — A few weeks ago in “Every College a Farm, Every College a Manufactory” I suggested that the members of each residential college within a university should grow or make some useful thing that can become a distinctive product of their college. Not only can this provide material benefits to the community, but it can also help to counter “the extinction of experience” we all face in the factory-made modern world.
Here’s a magnificent example of the kind of thing you could do, taken from Kim Severson’s column in yesterday’s New York Times (in the Dining & Wine section, of all places): why not adopt an endangered food plant. Your college could easily become the main international source for a specialty item of your choice.
The Waldoboro green-neck rutabaga? The Hutterite soup bean? The long-stemmed Harrison cider apple? Seneca hominy flint corn? Ojai pixie tangerines? The mind reels from the possibilities. Start planting today!
