California Rose Co. incorporated September 13, 1901 No. 03850 by Charles Howland & R. W. Wilson. Capital $ 15'000 [There are catalogues from 1899 and 1900]. Located first in Los Angeles, then in Pomona, Los Angeles County, California. City store at 629 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. Charter suspended March 1, 1919 for failure to pay taxes.
[From The Florists ' Exchange, May 19, 1900, p. 524:] We inclose herewith a photograph, taken last January, showing a partial view of our city salesyard located in the rear of our store and cellar. Unfortunately, your humble servant seems to be the most prominent feature of the illustration. The plants to the immediate front on the right are Maman Cochet, just potted up and not in foliage. The large plants next to the shed near store door are Marechal Niel, which are about 6 to 7 feet high andin full foliage, having been dug with the dirt on roots (balled) and transplanted to boxes. Our basement for storing dormant plants runs full size of the store — about 30x100 feet. With us enormous cellar room is not necessary, as we are able to dig plants any day during the late Fall and Winter; in fact, having to strip the foliage from the wood regardless of time of digging. The California Rose Company, Per C. E. Howland.
[From The Florists ' Exchange, September 14, 1900, p. 941:] Los Angeles, Cal,. — Articles of incorporation have been filed by the " California Rose Company," of this city, with capital stock $15,000. The corporation absorbs the interests of and is successor to The Howland Nursery Company and The California Rose Company. The incorporators are: C. E. Howland, R.H. Wilson, S. M. Wile, O. S. Howland, C. L. Canfield.
[From The Florists ' Exchange, July 8, 1905, p. 38:] A California Rose Field. Our illustration represents a view of a rose field of the California Rose Company, at Los Angeles. The firm are extensive growers and dealers in field-grown roses on their own roots.
[From The Florists ' Exchange, April 7, 1906, p. 477:] At Pomona, 45 minutes' car ride from Los Angeles, the California Rose Company has purchased growing grounds and is removing to this site its entire plant from Los Angeles.
[From The Florists ' Exchange, November 28, 1908, p. 757:] The California Rose Co. of Pomona have put up a muslin-covered house 300 ft. long, 50 ft. wide and are potting up their immense stock of rooted cuttings into 3-inch pots. The remarkable success that attends the work of these people in rooting rose wood from outdoor-grown plants is a revelation to all growers on this coast of what can be done in that branch of the nursery business. Certainly no attempts made by any other grower out here at this branch of the work have been successful compared to what the California Rose Co. have accomplished. Not a leaf is lost from the cutting from the time it is put in the sand until it is potted and I think I am within the bounds of truth when I say that 98 per cent, is the average "strike."
[From The Florists ' Exchange, February 5, 1910, p. 210:] The California Rose Co., Pomona, Cal. In the propagation of Roses under glass it must be borne in mind that wood ripened under glass roots more readily than that grown outdoors, but Mr. C. E. Howland, president and manager of the California Rose Co., begins his work on wood, grown in his twenty acre fields about June 1, and continues until about Sept. 15, in a manner entirely different from any other I have seen, and that, too, with so little invested in the propagating part of the establishment as to be surprising to the old orthodox growers. Entire frames, 6x100 ft., showed 98% of a strike ; even those varieties considered most difficult to root showed S0% rooted cuttings. These statements are not from someone else, but are made from my own observations, on different visits to the grounds of this establishment. The field itself, 20 acres, almost as level as a floor, about an inch fall to every hundred feet, is set solid to Roses every Spring, with plants out of three-inch pots, the rows as straight as an arrow. The majority of the plants are Teas, or of that class, and begin to bloom as soon as they get hold of the soil. The buds are picked off until June, when the plants have made a foot or two of growth, then the wonderful sight begins and is kept up until October or November, according to how soon the rains set in. Twenty or twenty-five thousand Kaiserln Augusta Victoria are in contrast with the same number of the brilliant Gruss an Teplitz, followed by eight or ten thousand of the soft, beautiful colored Winnie Davis, which in turn is followed by the wonderfully floriferous and fragrant Duchesse de Brabant. It is not necessary to extend the list of varieties further. Rosarians will understand when it is said that the field is one solid mass of foliage and flowers. These lines are written for the benefit of southern California nurserymen, who have never seen this field of wonderful beauty, as well as for the information of the less fortunate members of the craft whose privilege it has not been to visit this land of wonders. The fact is that in all my joumeyings in these United States, covering a period of half a century, my eyes have never beheld a sight equal in beauty and perfume as is presented by the half million young Roses each season, when in bloom, at the grounds of the California Rose Co. P.D. Barnhart.
[From The Florists ' Exchange, February 12, 1910, p. 259:] Mr. C. E. Howland, president and manager of the California Rose Company, Pomona, Cal., was born in 1863, under the shadow of the "Pilgrim Church," at Boston, Mass., a descendant of the John Howland who landed at Plymoulh in the "Mayflower." His father died when he was five years old, leaving his mother with three small children and limited resources. Mrs. Howland then took her young family to rugged Maine, where living was cheap, schools good and work a-plenty wresting a livelihood from tbe stern hills and rocks; young Howland attended the little red achoolhouse Winter's and ate good Apples and drank cider; he wrestled with the hoe, scythe and pitchfork Summers. Finishing school at a private academy, at the age of 19, he went to New York and found his first position as printer's devil; the said "devil" had full charge of the business in less than two years at a salary of $1000. Getting the Western fever in '85, he went to San Francisco, but found that city overrun with fortune seekers like himself. Unable to find employment he returned to the East in 1886, finding employment in the nursery business at Rochester, N. Y. About 1888 he engaged in the nursery business at St. Louis for a period of five years, from thence transferring the business to Chicago. On account of failing health he went to Los Angeles in 1896 and at once engaged in the nursery business there, selling, through traveling salesmen, a line of ornamental stock over the Coast and Southwest. Mr. Howland discovered very quickly that it was impossible to buy stock either in quantity or of satisfactory quality to handle the business he was getting; he also found that his sales were running to about ninety per cent. Roses. This settled his line of action, which was first to produce the Roses in quantity and variety and then sell the same through catalogs to the retail trade as well as to the wholesale trade throughout the United States.
[From The Florists ' Exchange, October 1, 1910, p. 618:] In their frames the company has 120,000 cuttings, 30,000 of which are of the new Rose Joanne Wessenhoff. Propagation began July 20, and the little plants are beginning to crowd the sash. The strike is about 98 per cent. Among the lot is a batch of 10,000 Mrs. John Laing, and it would seem that every cutting rooted.
[From The American Florist, February 27, 1915, p. 274:] The California Rose Co., of Pomona, Calif., is opening branch yards in most of the prominent cities of the coast, or California at least. We question whether it is proper for a company selling to wholesalers to open up sales offices in their customers' localities. We don't think so. G. N.
[From The American Florist, April 3, 1915, p. 604:] California Rose Co. of Pomona, Calif., sold all the roses they could to florists, nurserymen and department stores, then came in with a good supply themselves afterward, cut the prices and advertised considerably Some business that — but next year — what?
[From The Florists ' Exchange, April 10, 1915, p. 888:] The local dealers in Rose bushes and the Rose nurseries in this vicinity have been a little surprised when the daily papers carried conspicuous ads lately announcing a large shipment of two-year-old Roses at less than wholesale cost. The former office rooms of the Telegram on Alder st. have been rented by The California Rose Co. of Pomona, Cal., and sales started March 23. Several thousand bushes are being disposed off to the local bargain hunters and the local amateurs. [see ad from April 17, 1915 under Photos]
From The Florists ' Exchange, January 29, 1916, p. 270:] It is announced from Pomona that the ground occupied by the California Rose Company is to he subdivided and sold as residence property. The company will move to new acreage on the outskirts of the city, and continue the business on a larger scale.
[From The American Florist, February 5, 1916, p. 154:] PAMONA, Calif. — The California Rose Co. will dispose of its present location and remove to increased acreage on the outskirts of this city.
[From The Florists ' Exchange, July 8, 1916, p. 106:] The California Rose Co., which for years has been growing Roses at Pomona, has moved to Alharabra. and located on Valley Boulevard and Wilson ave.
[From The American Florist, August 26, 1916, p. 293:] To California Rose Company, Pomona, Calif., certificate of merit for rose exhibit. Special mention of the varieties La Detroit, American Beauty and Mlle. Edourd Herriot.
[From Roses and How to Grow Them, by John Horace McFarland, 1924, p. 125:] The California Rose Co., of Pomona, Calif.; the Conard & Jones Co., of West Grove, Pa.; the Dingee & Conard Co., of the same place; Peter Henderson & Co., of New York; A. N. Pierson, Inc., Cromwell, Conn., all have thus done much service
[From Marvyn Scudder Manual of Extinct or Obsolete Companies, ed. by C.P. Keane and H.J. Emmerich, Vol. I, 1926, p. 195:] California Rose Co. California charter suspended March 1, 1919, for failure to pay taxes.
