FRANCE: Winesap Savior

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In Yakima, Wash, and up & down the Shenandoah Valley, U. S. Ambassador Walter Evans Edge was last week gratefully known as "the man who saved the Winesaps." The French embargo on all fresh fruit from the U. S. (and particularly apples) was broken.

Ambassador Edge had more than an official interest in the embargo. He is heartily fond of greens. Objecting to the pale and bloated asperge blanche of France, he imports his own green asparagus from New Jersey. The Ambassador frequently chomps in Paris a crisp U. S. apple. Last week 500 tons of such apples, valued at $100,000, lay on the docks at Havre, kept out of the country as suspected carriers of the pernicious San José scale (TIME, March 21).

Ambassador Edge put on his hat and called his car. By nightfall he had a promise from the Ministry of Agriculture that the apples would be admitted as soon as passed by sanitary inspectors. That was not the limit of his victory. In future, only apples packed in barrels need be inspected. De Luxe Winesaps from Oregon, tissue-wrapped and in boxes, may enter France without question. Grateful importers offered to build a $40,000 apple shed on the Havre docks where blue-capped douaniers could inspect apples in comfort.