98 
The Garden Magazine, April, 1920 
ism that lies back of the great 
Rose propagation movement 
now going on. 
O NE name stands out 
preeminently among 
American rosarians. E. G. 
Hill, or “ Gurney” Hill as his 
friends hail him, has lived 
with Roses most of his 
seventy-odd years, and he 
looks it! In his astonishing 
place at Richmond, Indiana, 
as he takes the interested 
visitor through what seem 
like literal forests of Roses, 
he fits the situation. It was 
Dean Hole who wrote, “ He 
who would have beautiful 
Roses in his garden must 
have beautiful Roses in his 
heart,” and no one who sees 
Columbia, Premier, Mad. 
Butterfly, Mary Hill and their 
yet unnamed sisters in the 
company of the creator of 
these varieties can have any 
doubt about the accuracy of 
the statement. 
For a generation or more 
Mr. Hill has bought and 
tried all the Roses of all the 
world that seemed to him 
to have possibilities. He is 
known and loved in England, 
Ireland, and France among 
the brethren of the Rose, 
and his “scouting” has been 
as welcome as it was keen. In 1912 he saw in the Paul 
establishment at Waltham Cross, England, not only the 
beautiful bloom of the then just introduced Ophelia, but also 
its possibilities, wherefore he bought all he could get of it, and 
by his own methods and on his own high reputation put that 
great Rose to work for the Rose-raisers of America who grow the 
many millions of cut blooms annually demanded. 
Then he took up Ophelia as the parent of a new race of Roses. 
With General MacArthur, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Rich- 
mond, Rhea Reid, Robin Hood and other good Roses very 
much to his credit, with a ruthless dis- 
carding of seedlings having the least lack 
in his scale of points of perfection, he 
had experience, standards and ideals with 
which to use what has proved to be a 
peculiarly potent parent in that same 
Ophelia. With Mrs. George Shawyer it 
gave him Columbia; with an Ophelia 
seedling and Mrs. Charles Russell there 
resulted Premier. In each of these two 
notable Roses there was created a higher 
standard of sturdiness, color, beauty of 
form, petalage, foliage, endurance and 
prolificacy for the greenhouse Rose 
raisers. 
Their success has been phenomenal; an 
inquiry of a hundred large growers pro- 
ducing annually an average of more than 
a million blooms each, showed that though 
introduced only three years ago, Col- 
umbia led all other varieties, and that 
Premier was quite important. Columbia 
has been awarded the Hubbard Gold 
Medal by the American Rose 
Society, marking for it the 
highest honors. Columbia, 
too, has broken through the 
greenhouse glass, and, as is 
fit and proper for her name, 
taken place as a great gar- 
den Rose. So this review of 
the producers of American 
Roses for America may fit- 
tingly close with the story of 
the Rose which, up to date, 
stands first and highest 
among all raised in our land, 
and a proper memorial to the 
sweet spirit and the genius of 
the man whom we all delight 
to honor! 
THE RECIPIENT OF HIGHEST HONORS 
Happily named is Columbia, the Rose that brings the medal of crown- 
ing achievement over a period of five years to Mr. “Gurney” 
Hill 
THE LATE JACKSON DAWSON ' 
Whose work at the Arnold Arboretum 
covered two generations and from whose 
hands many wonderful hybrids came 
FRAGRANCE 
ROSES 
From an article by Dr. Van Fleet in 
the American Rose Annual for 1919 
A greeable fragrance 
t is one of the most 
valued attributes of the per- 
fect Rose, though many indis- 
pensable species and varieties 
do not possess it in marked 
degree, and not a few are 
either odorless or even dis- 
tasteful to the sense of smell. 
The wild Roses of North 
Europe mostly have faint fra- 
grance or are scentless and 
the same may be said of our 
Middle West and Pacific 
Coast species, though there 
are a few exceptions in the extreme Northwest. R. setigera, the 
scentless Prairie Rose, is a characteristic example of the lack of 
fragrance of the Rose species of our interior country. 
The violet-like odor of R. Banksiae may be mentioned. It is 
faint, but it will be recognized when thousands of blooms are 
expanded at the same time. The cinnamon odor ascribed to R. 
cinnamomea and kindred species has never materialized in the 
blooms or foliage of any of the plants 1 am familiar with. The 
cinnamon idea is rather associated with the color of the twigs. 
The Rose varieties used for the purpose in all the countries 
concerned in perfume production are, 
mostly hybrids of R. centifolia and R. 
gallica, the former predominating where 
quality, and the latter where quantity is 
most highly appreciated. 
The fragrance of our garden and exhibi- 
tion Roses, comes from the hybridization 
of R. chinensis, a species naturally of faint 
fragrance, with R. gallica, of Europe, giv- 
ing rise to the deliciously scented Hybrid 
Perpetuals of old gardens, and, by the 
crossing of these with R. odorata, to the 
immensely popular Hybrid Teas, some of 
which are intensely fragrant. Tea Roses 
themselves have their own characteristic 
fragrance, and this blends well with heav- 
ier centifolia odor, rising occasionally to 
the highest pitch of pungent sweetness. 
The blend of tea-scent with muskiness in 
some of the dwarf Polyanthas is agreeable, 
but the centifolia fragrance is rarely 
brought out in hybrids between R. multi- 
flora and those carrying centifolia odors. 
