The First Cherry Blossoms of Washington D.C...Were Burned to Protect America from Foreign Invasion?
By Heath Shive

The famous cherry trees of Washington, D.C., will begin blooming on March 20, peaking on April 4th.  

The trees are beautiful, iconic, and worthy of an American's bucket list.

And the first batch was destroyed to protect America from foreign invaders. 

Why?

To the history!

The Food Explorer David Fairchild

In the later 1800s, the U.S. adopted a largely unregulated gold standard which – when combined with mass production – created what economists called “the Long Depression.”

Between 1870 and 1895, the price for a bushel of corn dropped from 43 cents to 30 cents.  A bushel of wheat worth $1.06 in 1870 had lost almost 40 percent of its value by 1900.  
 
Realizing that American farmers needed more variety than just corn and wheat, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sent out "food explorer" David Fairchild to gather seeds and plantings from around the world. 

Fairchild is credited with introducing nectarines, avocadoes, mangoes, soybeans, and kale to the U.S.  

But Fairchild’s wife Marian loved Japanese flowering cherry trees, and when the Fairchilds finally bought their first home outside D.C. in 1906, Marian ordered over 100 flowering cherry trees. 

The Fairchild’s lawn become famous in the capital.

Flower Power

Then-president William Howard Taft had also been to Japan and had loved their flowering cherry trees. But here’s the thing: mainstream America was xenophobic just then.  There had been a general ban on all Asian immigrants – especially Chinese – for decades.  By 1907, Japanese and Korean immigrants in California were forced into segregated neighborhoods. 

And it wasn’t good to make Japan mad.  Japan was a rising world power.  From 1895 to 1905, Japan had successfully won wars against China and Russia. 

Planting beautiful Japanese flowering cherry trees in America's capital carried political importance.   

So 300 flowering cherry trees were shipped from Tokyo to Washington, D.C.

There was just one problem.  Or rather, thousands of tiny problems.
 
The Fruit Man vs. the Bug Man

Charles Marlatt was the USDA’s chief entomologist.  When California’s crops were being destroyed by the San Jose scale (an invasive insect), it was Marlatt who had saved the day by bringing back the scale’s natural predator - ladybugs. 

Yes, Charles Marlatt was the man who introduced ladybugs to the United States!  But during the trip to Asia, Marlatt's wife contracted disease and died.  

Foreign crops were Fairchild's fame, but Marlatt's pain. 

Marlatt inspected the imported cherry trees and found them rife with pestilence: root gall, 2 kinds of scale bugs, a new species of borer, and 6 more dangerous insect species. 

Taft had no choice but to burn the entire lot of trees, which newspapers made into a public spectacle.   

Taft and the diplomatic corps were afraid of Japan’s reaction, but Japan expressed only shame – shame that they had given so inferior a gift. 

Conclusion

New trees were sent, and these trees passed even Marlatt’s scrutiny.

And on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Taft planted the first tree and the Japanese ambassador’s wife planted the second tree. 

A century later, the trees still bloom, and national news networks use the blossoming as a kind of harbinger of spring.

In fact, Americans love the trees so much, that no one cares that these trees don’t make cherries.

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Sources:
Stone, Daniel.  The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats. Dutton, 2018.

Bad Choices, Bad Turns, Bad Relationships: The Psychology of Stubborn
By Heath Shive
​
Obstinate people think that it is a virtue to be stubborn.   

Why is it hard for us to change our minds, our jobs, our relationships, or our lives?

There is no inherent virtue in inflexibility.  After all, the chair that I sit on is unchanging – but my chair is neither faithful nor wise. 

But, scientifically, all humans might be programmed to be a little stubborn. 

Why?

To the science!

My Mug, My Chocolate, My Choice?

In a 1989 paper, economist Jack Knetsch asked one group of students to choose between a coffee mug and a chocolate bar.

Of these students, 44% wanted the chocolate bar, 56% wanted mug. 

Knetsch gave a second group only coffee mugs – but they could exchange for chocolate later, if they wanted. 

Knetsch gave a third group nothing but chocolate bars – but they could exchange for mugs later, if they wanted. 

One would expect that 44% of the students would have traded mugs for chocolate, and that 56% would have traded chocolate for mugs, right? 

No!  Only about 10% of the students wanted to exchange!

Knetsch’s experiment is used to demonstrate the endowment effect – that a person ascribes more value to something when he owns it. 

But psychologist Richard Thaler interpreted the experiment differently in his book Nudge. 

Thaler thought the experiment demonstrated “choice inertia” – that we do not like to change our minds.

We have an instinct to be stubborn.

Stubborn In The Face of Facts

Social psychologists M. Deutsch and H. Gerard performed a study on 3 different groups of college students.  The students had to estimate the lengths of some lines.

One group guessed mentally without revealing their estimate.  Another group had to write down their estimates, sign the paper, and hand these papers to the experimenter. 

All students could change their mind as new evidence was introduced.

The students that only mentally guessed were the most likely to change their minds.  But the students that wrote, singed, announced their guess were the least likely to change their decision.

The more effort we put into a decision, the more stubborn we become.

Betting On the Wrong Horse

Back in the 1960s, psychologists R. E. Knox and J. A. Inkster performed a study at a horse track.  Knox and Inkster discovered that gamblers were more confident about their bet after they made their gamble.

There was no change in facts.  The horses, the track, and the weather were all the same.  But 30 seconds after they made their bet, they were more confident of winning.

Humans can delude themselves about the facts, if it reinforces their earlier decision.

To be stubborn is to be deluded.

Conclusion

Why are we pre-disposed to stick to our choices?

There is something called prospect theory, which – and this is my translation – means that we make choices based on imagined results, rather than factual probability. 

Nobody gains skill, romance, or achievement after only one attempt.

We have to try and try again – imagining that someday we will win or that we will be proven right.  This is perseverance - and it might be a human instinct.

So what is the difference between stubborn and perseverance?

We are stubborn when we pervert our innate optimism to serve our egos, in spite of the facts and results.

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Sources:
Deutsch, M., and H. B. Gerard. “A Study of Normative and Informational Social Influences upon Individual Judgment.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51 (1955): 629-36.

Knetsch, Jack L., "The Endowment Effect and Evidence of Nonreversible Indifference Curves," American Economic Review, 1989, 79, 1277-1284.

Knox, R. E., and J. A. Inkster.  “Postdecisional Dissonance at Post Time.”  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(1968): 319-323. 

Thaler, Ricard. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Yale University Press, 2008.