ARIZONA-AMERICA'S ROSE GARDEN

blossoms. At these festivals dancers, tables, chairs, beds, floors, and streets were covered with fragrant blossoms. The rose was a part of every wedding, funeral, athletic event, banquet, and state occasion. In addition, the pow-der, ointment, or perfume made from roses was prescribed as a general medicinal cure-all.

Pliny, the foremost historian of his day, recorded that “at least thirty-two remedies were obtainable from roses.” Roses were cultivated as much for their medicinal value as for their beauty. History has since affirmed Pliny's words. No less an authority than the British Ministry of Health has discovered in these modern times that there is no richer source of Vitamin C than rose hips. (Rose hips are roses minus foliage, petals, stamen, etc.) So rich are rose hips in Vitamin C that 100 grams of rose hips yield from 500 to 6,000 milligrams, as against one orange weighing 100 grams which yields but 50 milli-grams. This knowledge was discovered during World War II when a shortage of citrus caused a shortage of Vitamin C.

The Roman's pagan adoration of the rose was not looked upon with favor by the Christian church and its appreciation suffered somewhat of a setback for a time. However, it was not long before the beauty of the rose shone through the darkness and soon the design of the rose found its way to its deserved places of grace in church windows, statuary, paintings, and sacred emblems. Once seen, who can forget the beauty of the Rose Windows in the great cathedrals of the world.

The modern rose of today dates its origin to China, from whence it was introduced to the French Isle of Bour-bon. The cross-breeding of the rose of China with the French Rosa Gallica produced the Bourbon rose about 1817. The Bourbons were then crossed with several Euro-pean roses to produce the great line of roses known as hybrid perpetuals or once-a-year flowering roses.

The introduction of the China rose was a most impor-tant step in the history of rose culture because recurrent bloom occurs only in the Asiatic rose. Native European and North American roses rarely bloom more than once a year. Also, only the Asiatic roses bear yellow flowers and bushes with trailing or climbing tendencies. The introduction of the Chinese rose becomes an even more monumental event when we realize that the major types of roses as we know them have been derived from two or more of the first eight species, all of Asiatic origin. All the other continents combined have been of little value in creating our fabulous collections of modern roses.

The first French hybrid perpetuals were crossed with another import from China, the tea rose, to produce the modern hybrid tea. In 1900 a French hybridizer produced the first pure yellow hybrid tea from which most subsequent yellows have been developed. The history of the rose enjoyed one of its most flourishing chapters in France. The Empress Josephine became the first great amateur rosarian and, with the help of the foremost rosarians of the day, established the finest garden in Europe, at Mal-maison, with a total of 256 of the best known varieties.

In England King Edward I first used the rose as his badge in 1272, starting a trend which resulted in the rose finding its place in British heraldry, and appearing on coins, stamps, art, and architecture. The rose was brought into special prominence in English history during the War of the Roses, a civil war between the House of York, whose badge was a white rose, and the House of Lancaster, which used a red rose. Happily, after the war the Houses were united. The rose York and Lancaster, half white, half pink or red, is a collector's item. The English, too, cultivated roses for their purported medicinal value. Thus were the first roses introduced to America by the Pilgrims, who included them in their cargo as a medical necessity. Roses also found their way to the New Worid with the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonists. Early writers told of the wild roses planted around the Indian villages.

whose badge was a white rose, and the House of Lancas-ter, which used a red rose. Happily, after the war the Houses were united. The rose York and Lancaster, half white, half pink or red, is a collector's item. The English, too, cultivated roses for their purported medicinal value. Thus were the first roses introduced to America by the Pilgrims, who included them in their cargo as a medical necessity. Roses also found their way to the New Worid with the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonists. Early writers told of the wild roses planted around the Indian villages.

In his Book of Physics William Penn writes about the eighteen rosebushes he brought back when he returned from England and tells of their beauty and medicinal virtues. George Washington was one of our first rosarians. His rose gardens at Mount Vernon were especially noted. There he grew the hybrid Moschata variety he named “Mary Washington” in honor of his mother. The rose has been growing at Mount Vernon for many years.

The first commercial rose business in America was begun by Robert Prince in 1737 at Flushing, Long Island. The Prince Nursery was the first to conduct an international rose commerce. By 1846 the firm had collected and marketed over 700 varieties on this continent. Today's modern rose directory lists some 7,000 varieties and 300 species. Over 16,000 varieties have been developed since the first China rose was crossed to the rose of France.

As America and its civilization moved westward the rose moved with it, to the Mississippi, to the Rockies, and beyond. Thousands of one variety were part of the prairie schooners' cargo to be planted on some frontier under western skies. Harison's Yellow was our first westward traveler, having been introduced in 1830. Fragrant, bright yellow, with rich green foliage, it had all the qualities typical of our pioneers, being described as “strong-stemmed, very vigorous (6 foot), most enduring.” In 1886 Bancroft and Field Brothers introduced Mme. Ferdinand Jamin to the United States. Although the Mme.'s parentage was unknown, her success story could have happened only in America, for the lady had what it takes and her ancestry did not matter. Mme. Ferdinand Jamin renamed became the original American Beauty Rose. So beauteous was she, so perfect were her proportions by any known horticultural standards . . . bud: globular; flower: very large, full, 50 petals, cupped, very fragrant, crimson-carmine shaded Neyron rose; stem: long, strong; bloom: vigorous, profuse . . . she will long stand as the Venus of roses. American Beauty as a variety is hardly to be found these days, but its name and glory will be classic so long as roses are known.

Today American hybridizers are successfully challenging the supremacy once held by Europeans and have introduced scores of “American Beauties” to the world, including the international awards winner “Queen Eliza-beth,” a grandiflora developed by Dr. Lammerts, noted American hybridizer. More than any other industry rose hybridizing today is completely international in scope and effect as man's quest for the perfect rose parallels his paths toward a more perfect civilization.

The newest All-American award selection, “White Knight,” is known as “Message” in Europe, where it was developed by the French hybridist Francis Meilland. What can be more international than the story of the “Peace” rose? In 1945 a French rosarian, A. Meilland, brought to this country a rose developed in his gardens called “Mad-am A. Meilland.” Seeking an American firm to promote it, he approached Jackson and Perkins Company, the world’s largest rose growers, who turned down the rose “Madam A. Meilland” as a freak. Meilland sold the rose to the Conard-Pyle Company of West Grove, Pennsyl-vania, who renamed it “Peace”—such a welcome word in 1945. The United Nations Conference in San Francisco was the star to which the new promoters hitched their publicity wagon and “Peace” became America’s new rose queen. In Europe the rose was only moderately success-ful. The promoters are entitled to the credit for the first year’s introduction of a new rose. But for a rose to be judged the most nearly perfect rose ever developed is another story. That is the success story of the “Peace” rose, whose 9.6 rating by the American Rose Society has never been equaled. The American Rose Society (ARS) national ratings are compiled from reports covering areas and conditions submitted by member growers accumu-lated over a five-year period. A rating of 10 would be a perfect one. (No rose has ever attained it.) “Peace” has come closest to rose perfection, justly deserving to be called “The Rose of the Century.” Each year hybridizers bring forth new roses. Each year the appreciation for the current varieties has grown to the point where the United States annual demand for rose bushes exceeds 80,000,000 plants for garden uses, while the florist and greenhouse trade averages 18,000,-000 plants per year. Wholesale rose growing is a big business and growing with every new home built in the United States today. Rose growers need vast acreage where more plants can be grown, bigger, better plants that will bring top prices with a minimum risk due to adverse climatic conditions, pests, and drought. It was the quest for such an area which established Arizona as the new world’s champion rose-growing area.

Prior to the early 1950’s major rose crops were grown in California, Texas, and Oregon. The southern California area giving way to real estate booms left growers with small parcels of acreage. Men and equipment had to be moved from place to place to grow and harvest crops. Technique standardization suffered as each parcel’s soil and water varied, thereby cutting quality standards. Due to the scarcity of ample growing land, crops could not be rotated as much as growers liked. In more recent years smog affected crops and the control of weeds, mildew, and insects became more costly. Conditions in northern California, although generally more favorable, are subject to climate contrasts which might result in severe quality loss. Oregon growers risk a killing frost at least once every decade and, with growers planting larger crops to meet increased demands, losses are major. The rose-growing areas of Texas have not as yet produced the high average top grade plants expected due to droughts and sub-average soil conditions. Unlike the California areas where irrigation is used and Oregon where rainfall is ample, Texas growers generally use the “dry-farming” method.

Roses had been grown in Arizona on a commercial basis in the mid-20’s by the Keen Nurseries of Phoenix, who specialized in “American Beauty” roses which were exported to the trade. Mr. Keen’s extensive horticultural background in England was well known to his customers, who marveled at the quality of the plants coming from “the desert country.” One of these customers was theworld's largest rose growers, the Jackson-Perkins Com-pany of Newark, New York, who had vast rose fields in every major rose-growing area. In the early 1950's Jack-son-Perkins decided to quit the Texas area and move into Arizona. Outside Phoenix in Deer Valley Jackson-Perkins planted 10,000,000 rose cuttings and two years later Ari-zona's ideal soil and climate plus controlled irrigation pro-duced 10,000,000 of the finest, biggest rose bushes ever produced anywhere. Meanwhile, in 1953, Frank Mogle, a cotton farmer of Casa Grande, figured that land which could produce top-yield cotton should produce top-qual-ity roses. That year Woody Whittington of Chino, Cali-fornia, planted an experimental field of cuttings at the Mogle Ranch. Two years later their harvest yielded the finest rose bushes Whittington had seen in twenty-five years of growing. That first crop averaged better than ninty percent No. 1 grade plants. In other areas an average of sixty-five percent is considered above average.

By 1955 the nation's leading rose growers were look-ing to Arizona as the new Garden of Eden, leasing or buying land as it became available. In the Phoenix-Deer Valley-Peoria area are The Jackson-Perkins Co.; Consoli-dated; Conklin Roses; Carl S. Sharmburger Nurseries; Paul Passage, Fred Mungia and Frank Bayerque of The Arizona Rose Co.; while in the Casa Grande area Whit-tington Nursery and Amling-DeV are the leading growers. The 1957 crop is estimated at around 15,000,-ooo plants. As other growers are making plans to ac-quire acreage, it is predicted that within six years Arizona rose growers will harvest around 40,000,000 plants.

What makes Arizona such an ideal rose-growing area? The answer lies in a most favorable combination of factors. According to the United States Department of Agriculture figures, Arizona enjoys more growing days per year than any other area . . . more days of day-after-day sunshine. The sunlight day is longer, enabling the process of photosynthesis to work its growing miracles. Vast acreage enables the grower to plant an entire crop under one piece of sky, assuring standardization of culti-vation, irrigation, and control of men and equipment. Near-perfect soil composition in land that has not been depleted by years of element-consuming crops is rich in necessary organic matter. Rose crops can be rotated so that no crop will be planted in the same block any oftener than once every eight years. Open-ditch irrigation makes for controlled watering. The grower can bring acres of plants to uniform size. This is of great importance in forcing or arresting growth. Since there is no smog or industrial pollution of atm atmosphere, this problem is nil. Weeds and insects are no problem. The cost of control is insignificant. Added together on the positive side, these factors result in more No. 1 grade plants per acre because Arizona-grown plants can reach the normal two-year growth in twenty months. This means that a grower has the equivalent of four extra months to fully mature and harden bushes. Because of this, Arizona-grown plants ship and store well above the highest standards required by the nursery industry.

One major factor stands on the negative side and that is the future availability of water. As soon as this factor can be transferred to the positive side, Arizona will be on its way to being the world's greatest commercial rose-growing area.

Visitors who fly into Phoenix in mid-winter are sur-prised and thrilled by the rose gardens at the Sky Harbor Airport, where the lush green foliage makes an artful background for the blossoms, each of which will cover a large saucer. After December 15 every retail nursery, grocery and variety store features bare-root and package roses, priced and graded for every budget. Planting time for Arizona is any time after December 15. By spring the new plants are heavy with blossoms at a time when other areas are just beginning to see the first buds of spring. Anyone anywhere can plant and enjoy roses. Your nurs-eryman will give you necessary information pertinent to your area and explain which type of rose is best suited to your landscape and environment.

Planting root stock Frozen budwood storage Budding slip

Lovers. Some appreciate a certain variety because of its background, special breeding, and esthetic characteristics. They know its lineage, its originator, the awards it has won, and dream of the day when they, too, can win the grand prize at the next rose show. Others just like roses any rose is beautiful. Who knows what the name is?

After the rose has blossomed, new joys and uses are limited only to one's imagination. Petals from the more fragrant kinds are dried and used in sachets or mixed with spices in old-fashioned potpourris. Exotic liqueurs can be concocted from extracts pressed from rose petals. Cooks in search of the unusual make rose hip jam. I've often thought of collecting records whose titles were inspired by the rose. No other flower has given the world so much in beauty. Whatever your taste in roses, whether patent or standard variety, it is being grown in Arizona. At the various growing grounds you will find rows of rose beauty yet unnamed, identified only by numbers. These plants are going through their first test seasons along with other plants of the same variety in test gardens throughout the land. One day their values and characteristics will be evaluated and judged. From these yet unnamed plants may come another national award winner. Then it will be named and patented. The patent holder will hold all rights and royalties for a period of seventeen years. No one may grow that rose without permission from the owner or his licensees. After seventeen years that rose joins the thou-sands of varieties classified as "standard." A patent tag on a rose is not in itself a seal of quality. Many standard varie-ties are superior to average patented kinds. Some roses are loved for their personalities rather than their rated quali-ties. Such a rose is the Arizona favorite, "Careless Love," one of the most fascinating varieties ever developed. In full bloom its camellia-like, white and red variegated blos-soms are exciting. Its first yearly flowers, however, are a source of constant surprise, for an all-white, all-pink and red blossom may appear on the same stem at one time.

personalities, came to the Valleys of the Sun from other parts in search of a climate and environment compatible with it's personality . . . The charm of Arizona's favorite rose is its beautifully unpredictable palette of thrilling color. It's as much Arizona as the everchanging desert sunset, or the color-play of the Grand Canyon.

Careless Love was developed in California by Henry Conklin, one of America's leading growers. The first two year Arizona-grown plants were introduced to Arizona rose lovers by the Berridge Nurseries of Phoenix during Fair Week in the fall of 1956. So enthusiastic was the acclaim for the new rose that a Special Award was bestowed at it's first public showing.

No rose was ever born with a more illustrious background of famous ancestors. The name Careless Love was chosen after research into its family tree disclosed ancestors born of cross-hybridizing famous parents with equally unfamous unknowns. Its line parent Radiance was born out of Enchanter and Cardinal, a most careless association in names.

No rose has more strongly inherited the virtues and good qualities of its ancestors, along with many of their faults. Its line parent Radiance has been outstandingly noted for over fifty years as a standard of dependability for its vigor, tolerance of different climates and soils, and high disease resistance. Careless Love has all these qualities plus the most exciting personality you can invite into your garden.

No one can fail to recognize this unique and distinctive rose no matter where it is grown. Camellia-like in coloring it combines pink and white, rose and white, red and white, and occasionally you might be surprised to find a pure white, a pure pink or an apricot yellow on the same stem.

Careless Love is truly a Personality Rose blessed with a touch of greatness from each of its glorious forebears. You can well be proud of the Arizona-grown rose you have invited into your garden. It is the finest expression of beauty that God and man can produce.

Careless Love, like many other exciting Arizona

Sorted bushes bundled Inspecting stored plants For summer market plants STATE ROUTE

BY JOYCE ROCKWOOD MUENCH

Something of the pioneer stirs in each of us at talk of a new road. Every trail through the wilderness was first cut, then widened, straightened, and finally paved, by men seeking their own special brand of Pot of Gold at the rainbow's foot. For some, it meant virgin lands to clear and plow; to others, open spaces for cattle and sheep range, precious metals to mine, or a gateway to trade. The frontiers may be gone, but Arizona, can still offer the golden lure of a new road, where a shortcut from home to holiday leads over fresh horizons.

Actually, the Kingman Road, in the western part of our youngest state, follows a long used route, a unit of State 93. Between Wickenburg and Kingman, it is now a fine, all-weather highway, through a particularly interesting and little-traveled land, packed with scenic surprises and punchlines of unexpected variety.

Even before the blacktop surface had been spread on it, people's eyes lit up with a gleam when they talked about it and tourists were assessing its merits. Fishermen from Phoenix, who take their boat-trailers to Lake Mead or Mohave for the weekend, noted that it cut off two hours of driving time each way. Two million annual visitors to Hoover Dam are already beginning to find a hundred miles lopped from their journey to southern Arizona's dude ranches by turning right at Kingman instead of making the long haul through mountains over U.S. 89.

When it becomes officially part of U.S. 93, truckers coming down from Nevada and Utah through Las Vegas will suddenly find Phoenix markets 25 miles closer to that junction than to Los Angeles. And no one on U.S. 93, clear up to the international boundary, will fail to see that, while it may not bring a whiff of hot enchiladas to our northern neighbors, the Kingman Cutoff magically erases 528,000 feet of distance between Canada and Mexico.

Link by link, the North American Holiday Highway is being forged into an unbroken route from Anchorage or Fairbanks to make 5700 miles of vacation land clear to Central America. Three nations join friendly hands in a display of some of the West's finest scenery in Canada, the United States and Mexico, under the egis of U.S. 93.

Within the United States, the traveler along this route finds safe, comfortable travel through regions where, a brief century ago, even the hardiest of pioneers and explorers had tough going. All the major east-west arteries cross it, and along its dramatic length, cities, towns and resorts serve the visitor as he makes his choice of mountain, desert or forest pleasures. Pavement in Montana covers ancient pathways of the "Tobacco Plains Trail," known to the Indians for centuries and more recently by packtrains of the fur-traders.

In both Montana and Idaho to the south, soaring peaks are seldom absent from the horizon, closing in for closer views as U.S. 93 follows a hundred miles along the Upper Gorge of the Salmon-the "River of No Return." Up over the Galena Summit (8,752 feet) for panoramas of the jagged Sawtooth Range and down into the green bowl of Sun Valley's world-famous ski resort and summer playground, the highway seems bent on catering to every vacation taste. You may detour to the weird Craters of the Moon and Shoshone Ice Caves and then swing back to enter Nevada, not far from the old Immigrant Road that led to California's goldfields. Vast cattle ranges spread south to the bright lights of Las Vegas on the famous Spanish Trail, beyond which shimmer the blue waters of Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam. From Kingman, Arizona, State 93 is combing its hair and learning the polite manners needed for a federal highway. When admitted to the fellowship, it will add its not inconsiderable charm to the international route and, by way of Phoenix, Tempe and Tucson, join U.S. 89 on the way to Nogales and the Mexican border.

Through three nations, the North American Holiday Highway will demand no passport beyond the urge to enjoy beautiful vacation lands, and we might say that Arizona's 93 provides a new taste thrill to complete a famous artery of happy travel. Not only does the new road eliminate grades and follow a more direct route, but the mechanics of road straightening have taken about ten miles off between Kingman and Congress.

OPPOSITE PAGE

"IN THE HEART OF THE DESERT" BY JOSEF MUENCH. 4x5 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f.22 at 1% sec.; 814" Zeiss Tessar lens; April; clear sunny day with puffy clouds. The scene was taken north of Wickenburg on State 93, and shows the rich desert vegetation to be seen along this highway.

"PINE LAKE HUALAPAI MOUNTAINS" BY JOSEF MUENCH. 4x5 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f.22 at 16 sec.; 6" Schneider Xenar lens; April; sunny. Pine Lake nestles in the Hualapai Mountains, framed here by a fringe of Mountain Laurel with big pines edging the farther shore. Hualapai Mountain Park, setting for Pine Lake, is operated by Mohave County and covers 2560 acres of pine-forested and rock slopes, climaxed by Hualapai Peak at 8266 feet. The area is just a few miles from State 93.

CENTER PANELS

UPPER-"GREEN FIELDS OF THE VALLEY OF THE BIG SANDY" BY CARLOS ELMER. Burke & James Panoram 120 camera; 120 Ektachrome; f.9 at 1/100th sec.; 5" Ross wide-angle lens; May, 1957; evening, near sunset; under 200 foot-candles. This brilliant green field is found along the Big Sandy River, on State Highway 93, a few feet from the crossing of that stream, just three miles south of Wikieup, Arizona. Near the end of a brilliant, colorful day "down on the Sandy," "I saw this green field close to the bridge across the Big Sandy River. The magical ninety-degree coverage of the Panoram camera shows the broad sweep of this beautiful area of mountains and farmlands," Elmer says.

LOWER-"NATURE'S DESERT ROCK AND DESERT GARDEN" BY CARLOS ELMER. Burke & James Panoram 120 camera; 120 Ektachrome; f.12 at 1/100th sec.; 5" Ross wide-angle lens; May, 1957; bright; 250 foot-candles, plus. This scene shows the wonderland of rocks found along State Highway 93 south of Kingman, Arizona. This spot lies between Burro Creek and the Santa Maria River, 28 miles south of Wikieup, or 40 miles northwest of Congress Junction.