5/11/11 NATIVE HAZELNUTS, AND REGAINING THE WILL TO PRODUCE QUALITY AMERICAN PRODUCTS

ONION SETS ARE PLANTED

BEAKED HAZELNUT CATKINS

FEMALE HAZELNUT FLOWER

TREES ARE DELIVERED AND READY TO BE PLANTED

Tuesday, 7:45 AM.  51 degrees, wind SSW, calm.  The sky is very hazy but clearing fast, and the barometer is up.  I heard distant thunder during the night, and roads and lawns are wet this morning.
    The trees arrived in good shape and are all unloaded and watered, waiting to be planted.  Digger’s Hotline has marked the utilities at all planting sites and we are ready to go.  Mike and Sharon on Ninth St. have planted their onion sets.
    The beaked hazelnut, Corylus cornuta, is blooming. A Bayfield County native, there is a very large bush in the woods  across the street.  It has male catkins resembling those of paper birch, except that they are lateral on the branches rather than terminal, and are somewhat smaller. Both genera are in the birch family, the Betulaceae. The female flower is very  tiny, the photo being from the Stevens Point University herbarium.  The nut is edible, and is enclosed in a tough beaked husk, which gives it its common name.  The more common Corylus americana is also edible and native here.  I have noted before that commercial hazelnuts, most likely hybrids of the native species and the European hazelnut, Corylus avelena, are a very promissing addition to the local fruit and berry industry.
    Continuing the discussion of whether American industry will ever again be able to make quality consumer products such as autos and appliances, I will cite the fact that at my last visit, six of ten Honda and Toyota models displayed at the dealer in Ashland were assembled in America; in Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas, the last three, at least, right-to-work states where management has far greater  control over production and quality. Quality is of course predicated upon the assumption that businesses are focusing on more than quarterly profits and stock price, and if they are not, then the only recourse for the consumer is to try to buy  the best products that may be available, regardless of place of origin. But, I am hopeful that high quality products can still be made in this country, where manufacturers have not abdicated their responsibilities, and politicians and unions are less able to interfere. Our society certainly has the technical and creative ability to produce quality; but it must regain the will to do so.