Reflections: May 2008

Ghosts of Presidents Past and Future

Mary Peet
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Needing to come up with a title for my Presidential address this week, I was leafing through a compilation book entitled Presidential Addresses from 1903–2003* that Jules Janick put together for our Centennial. While this very hefty tome may never make the best-seller lists—even at ASHS—I had seen Past-President Randy Woodson toting a copy back to Indiana a year before, so I thought I would continue the tradition and hope for similar inspiration.
In procrastinating before coming up the actual title needed to complete the 2008 Annual Conference Program and Abstracts, I did make a few discoveries that I thought might interest whoever was already enough of an ASHS devotee to be reading “Reflections” columns. My first discovery was that I had some very distinguished predecessors as ASHS President, with no other than Liberty Hyde Bailey contributing the first 3 addresses (1904–07). Equally renown with botanists and horticulturalists both in his time and today, Liberty Hyde Bailey is the proverbial “hard act to follow”. Many other Past Presidents are familiar as authors of classic textbooks, named awards and lecture series, as well as many ASHS Hall of Fame inductees and ASHS Fellows.

Although feeling somewhat intimidated, I did find one encouraging trend. ASHS Presidents have been a remarkably long-lived group! In 1963, Walter Reuther, who was born in 1911 and became an Assistant Professor of Pomology at Cornell in 1933, gave the Presidential Address at the 60th annual meeting held in Amherst, Mass. As far as I can tell, Dr. Reuther, and all but 12 of the 45 ASHS Presidents since 1963 are still alive! So this evidence of Presidential longevity led me to the actual title of my address “So That’s Why I Think ASHS Will Be Around for a While.”

Reality Check

Realistically though, what are the chances for an ASHS bicentennial in 2103? The bicentennial prognosis based on recent Presidential Addresses was discouraging. Starting in the late 1960s, many Presidential Addresses have focused on challenges (five talks) to both ASHS as an institution and to horticulture as a discipline, addressing such topics as the “Finite Resources,” “the Corporate University,”“Horticulture at Risk,” and “Post-Land Grant Era.” These contrast to the heady optimism of early Presidents, such as Liberty Hyde Bailey (1904) and Homer Thompson (1925), who saw unlimited potential for both the practical and scientific aspects of their newly expanding fields. In the 1919 address it was noted that the budget for horticultural research and instruction in Illinois had been doubled in the past year to $110,000 and they hoped to double that again in two years. I’m not sure how that translates into 2008 dollars, but the rate of increase is impressive, and was attributed by the speaker to successful efforts to reach the legislature by educating citizens throughout the state about the benefits of horticulture. Sound familiar?
So why do I think at least some version of ASHS might be around for a bicentennial? One reason is that, because of or perhaps in spite of, all the “gloom and doom” prognostications in Presidential Addresses starting in the 1960s, ASHS has been remarkably good at reinventing and remarketing itself.

In the 1968 meeting at Davis, Calif., ASHS President Neil Stuart challenged members to get involved in community efforts to preserve farmland for agriculture, to engage members of the larger community in gardening and other outdoor pursuits, and to do a better job of recruiting students and publicizing the importance of horticulture to the general public. Sound familiar?

Drs. Stuart and Blair would be pleased that now, after only 40 and 89 years, respectively, we have a National
Issues Task Force and a consultant active on Capital Hill, a highly effective press release program, a newly redesigned website (including podcasts and other resources for ASHS members, educators, and the gardening public), and a new certified horticulturist program reaching out to trained horticultural practitioners. It might be hard to explain the web redesign and podcasts though! In addition, we can all be proud that, despite all the challenges enumerated in the years since 1968, our journals are still strong, with submissions at all-time highs and turn-around time for peer review at an all-time low, sometimes only a few days. Membership and conference attendance are stable, our financial resources are good, and member enthusiasm, as evidenced by working group initiatives and committee volunteerism, continue at high levels.

But 2103 is still a long time off. Why do I think there might actually be a future 2043 PhD horticulturalist attending this reinvented and remarketed ASHS-like organization in 2103?  Visiting Congressmen and women last May with the other National Issues Task Force members convinced me that there is a new appreciation of both the importance of “specialty” crops and the importance of the kinds of research, extension, and educational activities that our members conduct every day. In particular, the argument seemed to resonate that if we lose our ability to produce fruit, vegetables, and ornamentals domestically, we could become as dependent on imported food as we are on imported oil. Although the much maligned Farm Bill did not have as much funding as we would have liked to have seen for specialty crops, at least some specialty crop funding was included for the first time. Even in the Post-Farm Bill era, we hope to increase our input on Capitol Hill in all areas important to our members and our industry through continuing Task Force efforts, as well as those of our members and staff.

These are a few of the reasons “Why I Think ASHS Will Be Around for a While”, even with recent drastic increases in world food and energy prices and projected shortages of both, as world populations increase and demand more and better food. What do you think about whether ASHS will be around for a while, at least in some form? Do you have any inspirations on ASHS longevity? Whether or not the ghosts of ASHS Presidents are whispering in your ear, email me your thoughts. After the Business Meeting, I’ll even consider turning over my 505-page volume of 1903–2003 Presidential Addresses to the author of the best submission!

You can decide if that’s a threat or a promise!

*Copies of Janick’s book are available for purchase via the ASHS Shopping Cart.