heirloom variety

Indeed a thing we would not know if they did not blog intermittently, the distinction of open-pollination explained succinctly:
allowing crops to breed naturally, either assisted by resident pollinators, the wind or self-pollinating to produce offspring consistent with the desired traits of the parent plant.  We became impatient in the name of efficiency and the resultant, sustainable population explosion that came with the discovery of the Haber process at the turn of the century, which also ushered in the decline of open-pollinators. Monocultures and hybridisation have meant that the resultant seeds (a hybrid inbred) will not germinate or at least not in a predictable way, which is why modern agriculture has become reliant on a handful of seed providers—and the pesticides designed for them. At least one group is actively working to establish seed banks and a cooperative to educate consumers and farmers and give them a viable alternative.

butterfly in the sky

Regardless whether or not Reading Rainbow or Star Trek: The Next Generation registers on your nostalgia spectrum, you should do yourself the favour of checking out the new podcast series called LeVar Burton Reads. Drawing from different authors and a variety of genres (but with an emphasis, I suspect, on sci-fi), Mister Burton reads short fiction to his audience in a very engaging fashion. But don’t take my word for it.

grammatologie

To the dismay of some orthographic purist, the German Spelling Council (Rat für detsche Rechtschreibung oder RdR) the Eszett—ß will finally be given a proper capital (majuscule) form.
Instead of the rare but possibly confusing representation of a double S for the upper case letter, now people can officially exercise the option of using ẞ—großes Eszett. The pictured example is from sixty years ago but was an unofficial, unsanctioned capital glyph that the East German dictionary publisher designed for its own use, and there were other antecedents as well—going back nearly a century. STRASSE or STRAẞE now are both accepted but the same council session also decreed that certain Teutonicisms of foreign words like Joga or Ketschup are Verboten and the native spelling (more on spelling reform here and here) should be retained.

port sunlight

We really enjoyed the guided tour from Amusing Planet of the model villages (company towns) of the UK planned and constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the trailing years of the Industrial Revolution to house workers and their families.
Corporate barons in all trades from locomotion to mining, soap and chocolate created accom- modations and amenities that was far superior to the relative squalor of crowded working class neighbourhoods in urban centres. Although these pursuits weren’t entirely altruistic with landowners wanting to rid themselves of the eye-sores of cottages of the poor interrupting their views and some arguing the whole scheme was just the latest incarnation of feudalism with workers rather trapped and indentured (or indoctrinated) and with no choice other than patronising the company store, these settlements nonetheless pioneered retirement, medical benefits and union representation and helped enshrine and solidify the notion of labour rights. These purpose built villages were eventually integrated as regular towns and many contain listed-structures of historical significance.