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Highway engineers are conducting tests for its use as a safety barrier to replace those long metal bands seen alongside our highways at dangerous curves. It develops into a dense impregnable mass that will impede the crash of an automobile, without the death-dealing impact of its metal counterpart.

It may develop into a twofold purpose, lending a landscape effect. Wherever gardening is practiced in every climate and region in the United States, the rose will grow, although some species will grow and do better in some sections than others. The rose has a special liking for the mild Georgia climate and is well adapted to our heavy clay soils.

The rose is a symbol of beauty, peace, loyalty, love, devotion, and courage. Let's make it America's national flower.

Mr. JONES. We will now hear from Miss Cairns, of Minneapolis. Would you care to present Miss Cairns, Congressman Judd? Mr. JUDD. Yes.

Mr. Chairman, it is a great privilege for me to present Miss Margo Cairns. I don't know whether she is a native of Minnesota. But she has lived there a great many years and has been a good friend of mine. I have already referred to her extraordinary interest in this matter over a period of years since she was a little girl. I am happy to present one of the most unique personalities it has been my privilege to know, in carrying out a campaign for what to her is a great and worthy cause. Miss Cairns.

Mr. JONES. We are very happy to have you.
Thank you, Mr. Judd.

STATEMENT OF MISS MARGO CAIRNS

Miss CAIRNS. The most outstanding point I want to make at the very first is that I love the rose.

Mr. JONES. I think everyone does.

Miss CAIRNS. I had a garden three-quarters of a mile long. I couldn't raise the rose in my garden because I was too far north in Minnesota, but my grandfather, from England, raised it it his garden and I loved it. I have seen it from childhood. I had been writing a book on flowers, rather a unique presentation of an old theme. I had spent a couple of years on the writing and the research. It had gone to the publishers and was returned to me with a request for another chapter in the form of a concordance. When the resolution was put in Congress in January 1955, for the rose as a national floral emblem, I went at once to Congressman Judd. He was in Minneapolis a few days afterward, and I said "It just can't be. We want something that is really a symbol of our land, something that is a symbol of our people, of our country, our history and traditions."

I said, "As you know, I never wear anything but floral earrings." I love flowers to that extent. I have six very beautiful pairs of rose earrings, but a favorite flower, something which someone really loves for itself and an emblem of a nation are two very vastly different things.

I would like to ask, Why have it and think of it as an emblem of our United States? I notice here they have been talking about a flower, but I have been talking and those with me, of an emblem, that which identifies our land. Was the rose at Jamestown when Capt. John "Smith went to Chief Powhatan and begged for corn to sustain them, even though the corn was in a green stage? He was ready to trade almost anything to get food to save that struggling band. Was it roses that caused the Pilgrims to kneel in that cold place, in that

bleak winter day and give thanks for provisions? It was corn they found there, the Indian maize, which had been here for centuries. The very word "maize" means "mother," that which feeds, nourishes, and sustains. This mother was waiting there on the eastern coast to feed the settlers as they came.

It was filling a great need in Philadelphia at the Continental Congress. Dr. Benjamin Franklin writes of their use of this corn when he was in France. He was dealing with England before the war. It went as export to England to pay for the transportation costs of the Mayflower. Corn was used as currency many times in the colonies.

It was the foundation of our national beginnings. It was the foundation of our Nation. It was corn and the Bible that the pioneers took with them when they made that great western trip. It was these, material and spiritual food, that conquered the wilderness, and that cared for the pioneers as they trekked from the east coast to the Pacific.

In every part of our national life corn has played a vital role, and now today it is of the greatest importance. Congressman Judd gave some statistics from the Federal reserve bank back in our home city.

Some time ago a great rose lover in New York State wrote in a magazine, the Men's Garden Club Magazine, that there was no flower that really identified this country, "so let's have the rose anyway." He couldn't think of anything that really was symbolic of the United States. I answered it in this way. May I read it?

Mr. JONES. Please.

Miss CAIRNS. It is entitled "Guarding Our Heritage."

I cannot think of any particular flower or plant that is symbolic of the United States

so wrote a rose lover of Syracuse, N. Y.

Was he

Was this man thinking only of garden flowers and hothouse flowers? not overlooking our ageless native American maize fruit and plant which so exuberantly and faithfully blooms, fruits, and serves in continuing cycles? Yet in New York State alone there grew over 700,000 acres of it in 1956. Maize that saved the starving Pilgrims. Maize that succored the Jamestown settlers. Maize that fed the original North Americans. Maize of the Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs, Incas, and pre-Incans. Maize upon which civilization after civilization built through several milleniums all in the Western Hemisphere.

We today are heirs of all that countless generations of known and unknown races have labored to develop. Maize was the foundation of ancient economies, maize or corn is the foundation of our economy. Today, through the consecrated efforts of skilled scientists, corn has been made to serve us in industry as well as in food.

It has been suggested that the rose be designated as our national floral emblem. What is an emblem? It has been defined as that which is intimately associated with what it represents. Is anything that springs from the earth as intimately associated with this land and its people as corn?

For many weeks of every year the golden, pollen-ladened flower fulfills its delicate mission, insuring perpetuity, then awaits a glowing prophecy of the wealth to follow. And every autumn its prolific fruit overflows the Nation's granaries, and streams into countless industries to reappear as necessities of our high standard of living.

then is the faithful flower of the United States. It is the true symbol of this vast, bountiful land. It is this symbol of agriculture's wealth that we should honor, for we are practically the only people in the world's history that has never known hunger.

The rose grows in every land, hence it is an international flower, a happy choice as the floral emblem of the United Nations. But for our own United States, let

us honor the corn tassel, flower of the native plant bequeathed to us as a priceless legacy. Let us guard our heritage well that it may supply our nation in all ways— always-Margo Cairns.

Miss CAIRNS. Mrs. Martin in her presentation made the comment that national flowers

Often

are rarely deliberately chosen. They spring from history and tradition. times they represent the hopes and aspirations of a people. The birth, history, and struggle for survival, and the future of nations are often symbolized in a nation's chosen flower.

How perfectly Mrs. Martin depicts the corn tassel. How truly the corn tassel springs from history and tradition. How surely it represents the hopes and aspirations of a people, both the people at Jamestown, Plymouth, at the Continental Congress in 1775 in Philadelphia, and now. The birth, history, and struggle for survival were inexorably bound and are bound to the corn tassel.

Mr. JONES. Thank you.

Does that conclude your statement?

Miss CAIRNS. Yes.

Mr. JONES. Are there any questions?

Mr. HARRISON. No questions.

Mr. JONES. I want to thank you, Miss Cairns, for appearing.

Miss CAIRNS. I would like to say that the governors of various States have taken such a lively interest and they have been sending me pictures, 8 by 10, showing the relationship of corn to their States. Here, by the way, is a very beautiful thing showing a harvest scene, and here from eastern Kentucky, another harvest scene. Here is a picture, or glossy of sketch that was made back in the 1500's sometime, printed in Europe in 1590, of an Indian village in North Carolina, showing the corn of that day and the different stages of growth.

Here is one from Plymouth, Mass., a marker on the spot, called Corn Hill, where the Pilgrims found the corn when they were starving. Here is the history of corn carved in stone on the face of the great laboratory in Argo, Ill., and in that plant they are converting a hundred thousand bushels of corn into everyday necessities. It goes into the resolutions that are being printed and even to the Congressional Record. Here is an old gristmill that ground the corn that made Abraham Lincoln's bread while he lived in New Salem. Here is one from our National Capital, the pillars that Thomas Jefferson had installed there honoring the corn. He lived very close to the period of the beginnings of this Nation and he knew the great debt the colonists and the Nation owed to corn.

There are others. Here is one from the Governor of Kentucky, My Old Kentucky Home so closely bound to the beautiful ballad. Here is the corn palace of South Dakota.

Here is an exquisite painting of one little section of the mural that is in the Kansas capital by a famous artist.

A remark was made that there had been no poems written. Longfellow, Whittier, and all of the poets wrote glowingly of corn. There are so many poems of it. I have never taken time to collect them. I thought they were accepted. I want to say further that our former President of the United States, Rutherford Hayes, while in office made the statement that corn was the inevitable emblem of the United States.

These are six pictures that have come from the Governor of New Mexico. He wrote me saying:

If you want to know about corn, come down here with us. We have had it for centuries.

This is the use of the corn. Here is bread being made as it was a thousand years ago by the old method. Here is a corn dance. It is in New Mexico. Here is one from Arizona. Here are the sacred forms of New Mexico in a beautiful drawing.

The last pictures to come to me are from the Governor of Pennsylvania. Here is a picture of Independence Hall, where corn was so necessary in their negotiations. Here is the mansion of William Penn, where he sent his emigrants out with a bag of seed corn to start them in their gardening.

Here is one of cheese of Wisconsin. There is something that typifies every State in the Union. These pictures are coming to me.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Miss Cairns.

How many other people are here who would like to either make a brief statement, or file a statement?

Mr. White, we would be glad to hear from you at this time.

I hate to rush you gentlemen, but we had planned on trying to conclude this hearing at quarter to 12. If we can do that.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD P. WHITE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF NURSERYMEN

Mr. WHITE. I am Richard P. White. I am executive vice president of the American Association of Nurserymen, an organization plant growers, approximately 1,600 in every State in the Union except Nevada. I am speaking for them in supporting Judge Davis' Resolution 465, for the following reasons:

In the first place, the rose is an universally used plant in every State in the Union. It is adaptable. Some form of the rose is adaptable and has a very great variety of uses. Some have been mentioned this morning. Some have not. We look upon the rose as a symbol of peace, and I think that is one reason why so many countries have the rose as their national flower.

In fact, one of our most important roses today is named Peace, originally distributed at the San Francisco Peace Conference a number of years ago.

One of the many and wide varieties of uses, of course, is in home landscaping. It is being used as living fences in rural and urban areas and along the snow fences along the highway systems. It is used along the highway system for the planting of strips to cut down headlight glare and barriers on curbs. There are very many utilitarian

uses.

It is also used along the marginal areas of our highways as noise abatements. There is a new highway system going through the urban areas which will create a lot of noise. The rose is being used by a lot of highway departments for that purpose.

The other uses are for hedges. It is used for ground cover, soil, and water conservation, and for wildlife, cover, and food in the great conservation areas of the country, and in so far as its origin was in other lands, I would like to point out for the committee there are 35 native species of roses in the United States.

Mention has been made of certain polls. While I do not have the polls with me, my information is gleaned only from magazines, such as the one that has been introduced here for the purpose of committee information, but it far outranks any other flower in any other poll that has been taken that has come to my attention. We have municipal rose gardens all over this land. In the South we have very fine municipal Camellia gardens. In the east and west coast we have azalea gardens, but in gardens the rose is the one basic flower that is is used in appreciation in our municipals.

You will find them everywhere all over this country.

There is only one other point I would like to make. Some questions have been raised about the commercial value of this product. I think I should mention it too. The 1950 census has reported as to farm income, the 461⁄2 million roses produced every year in this country represents $11,430,000 farm value. That is 16 percent of the farm value of all nursery crops. Consequently that is the reason why my association and its members are interested in supporting House Resolution 465. I don't think there is a nurseryman serving the public who does not either grow or merchandise roses, in some form or another, and for some of these users.

Just recently the crop reporting system of the United States Department of Agriculture issued its 1957 report on 10 States. This last year the rosegrowers in 10 States sold 41 million bushes with a value of $13 million and on January 1 this year they had $50 million in inventory, so symbolic of peace, usable in every State in the land, the rose is the most popular single flower we know about.

Due to the commercial value to the farmers growing it, it gives employment to a large number of people in every State except Nevada. Those are the reasons why we are supporting this resolution. Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. White.

Are there any questions?

Mr. LESINSKI. Mr. Chairman, I have a question. I am sorry I came in late. I had other commitments.

You stated there were roses of national origin in this country. They are not the same rose. We understand they are an import, the so-called key rose.

Mr. WHITE. No; the native roses are specie rose. Like the Prairie Rose, for example.

Mr. LESINSKI. That is true. The point I am driving at, the rose we know about, the commercial rose, is not a native of this country. Mr. WHITE. No; I don't think so. It has been hibernized. I think these rose growers can answer that question much better than I. Mr. LESINSKI. Thank you.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Zimmerman, would you care to make a statement? STATEMENT of Gordon K. ZIMMERMAN RESEARCH DIRECTOR, THE NATIONAL GRANGE

Mr. ZIMMERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I am Gordon Zimmerman, research director for the National Grange, an organization of about 800,000 farm and rural people.

I will not belabor this issue, Mr. Congressman. In 1956 the National Grange delegated body, in a formal resolution in Rochester, moved to work in behalf of the adoption of the corn tassel as the

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