The Horrors of Horticulture

"All Art is quite useless."

-Oscar Wilde 

Human society happens to be unique from, say, a dolphin society or any other primate society not just because ours' is far more complex, but also because we're the only species which practises agriculture.

Also, we don't throw poop.

While the farmland has it's own sets of horrors, the more twisted and cruel form of plants' rights violations is in the field of horticulture, whose horrific experiments' results are used to increase production. PETOV condemns the dystopian horror poor, defenceless vegetables are forced to undergo for humans' lusty desire for fibre and here, we're examining exactly what horticulture is, some of its methods, and why they're wrong.

What is horticulture?

Horticulture is derived from the Latin words hortus, meaning "garden", and cultura, meaning "to grow". At this current age of scientific progress where we almost have the tools for genetic remodeling of human embryos, many scientists have urged that a conversation needs to begin about the ethics of editing genes to make super-babies.

"Who threw this turd?!"

But we've been selecting the traits we want in our livestock, in our pets and in our plants and having them breed accordingly for a long time. Most of the vegetables are not what they would have been had they been allowed to evolve along natural lines (side note: we shall also launch a movement to consider all fruits as vegetables. Vegetables face internal discrimination, too, because they are looked down upon by the supposed fruit-kind who are favoured by the human tyrants, when, in fact they're all parts of a plant).

It may not look like it, but this basket's a hotbed of racial tension.

Not only that, but horticulture encompasses every kind of gardening which has a produce. For the purposes of this article, we shall only discuss about the ways horticulture has led to the evolutionary deformation of lovely vegetables, and the ways humans use it as entertainment.

Evolution Derailed

The first vegetable that we must talk about is a "fruit": the avocado.

Aw... How can anyone ever eat you? 

It is prized by the human tyrant because of it's high fat and protein content, and it's savoury taste. However, the avocado wasn't always like this. It used to be small and light and numerous, but we humans have, through thousands of years of genetic selection, made it into the present, meaty "fruit" it is. The acovado looked something like this: 

<insert testicle joke>

It was only through selective breeding that we created this monstrosity which is happy when young, but when it grows up, it goes into a corner of the salad and cries its heart out because it's overweight. Yes, vegetables are body-shamed, too.

WHY IT'S WRONG:

How would we feel if our gametes were forcibly taken from us and made to fertilise each other in the interests of someone else, let alone an entirely different species? PETOV has previously outlined the irrelevance of our perceived ideas of sentience in matters related to ethics of treatment. If it's not acceptable to breed humans, it's not acceptable to breed animals, and it's not acceptable to breed plants.

Not acceptable at all

Well we haven't stopped there. We're still tinkering to make plants that'll eat our excreta and convert it to food. This is an egregious case of plant rights' violations! If humans were forced to eat their own excreta, it would be an ethical outrage. Then why is the concept of plants being forced to assimilate our excreta not only so acceptable but regarded as a scientific breakthrough?
But it's not just ethical reasons we're forced to consider. Even from a selfish side, we must think of the coming Plant revolution. The idea may seem ridiculous to you now, but evolution can take some dramatic turns. For example, did you know about avian dinosaurs? Probably not. When the theory was first seriously proposed, people took it with a grain of salt, but now, a majority of palaeontologists are quite certain that these little guys,

"Poop jokes aren't funny, man."

Are pretty close cousins of this guy:

"If you make one more poop joke..."

PETOV has previously mentioned the dangers of genetic tinkering to humans, and we reiterate it here. Not only that, but cross-breeding different species can often produce horrific results which may be traumatic to the vegetables concerned. There are such nightmares as the blood lime and broccoflower. Experiments for cross-species fertilisation of humans are taboo, but those of animals and plants are rampant, and seem to delight the scientific community with their weird (read: gruesome) results.

The horrors of horticulture aren't, however, relegated to breeding. Humans have conduncted Frankensteinesque experiments on plants and have called it "science" for long. But no more! PETOV shall fight against such injustice!

Ghastly Grafting

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE HAS GRAPHIC CONTENT

When I was in school, I remember a section in our biology book which described a process it called grafting. I take no pleasure in recounting the horrific description detailed there, but we need to feel the horror and inhumanity of what we do to poor vegetables to understand the centuries of normalisation of plant cruelty. Try to imagine it as a human being and see if it's appalling to you or not.

And if it isn't, well...

Steps of Grafting:

• Take two plants. One will have its lower body (think of you from waist-down) used as the rootstock and the other will have its upper body (waist-up) used as a scion. (Choose what you want to be now.)
• Make vertical incisions in the rootstock and peel the bark away (imagine you being chopped in half, and then someone cutting deep into your pelvis multiple times and then skinning you while you're still alive and can feel it).
• Take the scion and then expose it's cambium (imagine having your upper body chipped away at until your spinal cord is exposed).
• Take the scion and place it firmly in the rootstock. (Depending on what you've chosen, you will be jammed into the lower/upper body of another human. Or maybe a horse).

Like so. But without the bow.

And then you'll be wrapped up in plastic and aluminium foil until you and the horse have blended in with each other and are one organism.

When I read of this horrific practice, I cringed. But my biology teacher went on teaching as if nothing was wrong about it. I didn't tell anyone about it, though, but now PETOV has given me an opportunity to speak up.

Grafting, unfortunately, is not merely rampant in all orchards of the world, but it's encouraged as a scientifically viable practice for making gardening easy and increasing produce. If it has been normalised by something as basic as our education system, human society is truly doomed. However, the horrors of grafting don't end there. Several professional gardeners have taken up this method of plant cruelty to the next level by turning it into an awful art project.

In this video by National Geographic, we see a man who has managed to grow 40 kinds of fruit on one tree: 

Using the torture method of chip grafting extensively, this man has attached 40 kinds of fruits with pits to one tree. PETOV condemns such heinous plant experimentation. Some people, will, however say that this is a work of art, just like most horticultural orchards, and we shouldn't try to moralise it, but we've thought quite carefully about it. People can be divided into two groups based on their opinions of aesthetics.

French people, and idiots

One one hand we have aesthetic autonomists who believe that art is in a protective bubble and can't be touched by ethical implications, while aesthetic moralists believe that art is responsible for its moral transgressions. We at PETOV believe that artists must get credit for the positive change that their work inspires, and if we believe that works of art such as Uncle Tom's Cabin deserve recognition for their influence in fighting slavery, works of art such as this 40 fruit tree which use morally transgressive methods and inspire others to do so, too, should not be encouraged either. It might even propagate the idea of making two faced humans.

As if they aren't two-faced enough

Horticulture, through the ages, has produced horrors which we humans have come to accept as normal and acceptable. We have had HYV (high-yielding-varities) of seeds, bigger, more durable fruit, higher levels of production, and most importantly of all, bonsai (much like crucifying someone but never letting them die.)

"Tell me about it." *sigh

Such experiments with humans are banned, and PETA is already campaigning to stop such experiments from being conducted with animals. Why must vegetables be left out? 
This is the wave of change we must ride! PETOV shall fight against plant experimentation and torture. Subscribe, and join the fight and remember to share and spread the message. 

#savethevegetable

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