In November 1940, the last American plane that got out of France, just one step ahead of the invading Nazis, carried an innocuous bundle addressed to Robert Pyle of West Grove, Pa. The bundle contained a handful of stems from a rosebush. All through the war, French Rose-Grower Francis Meilland worried about the prize he had sent to his fellow horticulturist. Not until 1945 did he learn that it had arrived safely, Pyle had nurtured it, patented its blossoms and produced hundreds of bushes from Meilland's hardy stock. Then he christened the pale gold roses "Peace," and distributed samples to the 49 delegates to the founding session of the United Nations.
Peace quickly became a rosy success. During the war, the Meillands had barely managed to hang on to a remnant of their rose-growing business near Lyon. Now, with royalties pouring in from the U.S., they were able to buy a chunk of expensive land on the Riviera and make a fresh start. In less than a decade, the Peace rose was blossoming on some 30 million bushes throughout the world. "How strange to think," wrote Francis Meilland in his diary, "that all these millions of rosebushes sprang from a tiny seed no bigger than the head of a pin—a seed we might so easily have overlooked or neglected in a moment of inattention, or which might have been relished as a tidbit by some hungry field mouse."
Bush Royalties. Today, at least eight out of ten roses bought in any flower shop in Western Europe are Meilland creations. In the U.S., Meilland roses have earned ten awards at the annual All-America Rose Selections, while no other European firm has ever won twice.
Alain Meilland, 27, a fifth-generation rose-grower who now heads the business, has a personal income of close to $200,000 a year. At least 10% of the millions of rose plants sold in the world every year, he says, are Meilland's. Since the success of Peace, professional rose-growers around the world buy his breeding stock, propagate it by grafting, and pay him royalties of 100 to 500 on each bush they sell. "We are a research laboratory whose sole purpose is to create beautiful roses," says Alain, as he points proudly to the family's 15 acres of greenhouses and gardens on the French Riviera's lush Cap d'Antibes.
The Meillands make a fetish of rigorous testing, and take ten years or more to create a new variety of rose. The seeds of cross-pollinated blooms are culled and planted and the seedlings put down in the greenhouses—100,000 at a time. Every morning the young boss walks down the long, glass-covered alleys, pulling out some roses and placing white marker sticks next to the promising bushes.
One in 100,000. Some 2,000 survive his critical eye during the first three-year period. Further tests reduce the number, until only 20 to 30 remain by the end of the sixth year. Those select bushes are then sent to 24 countries, from the U.S. to Finland, from Kenya to Japan, for exposure to various climates. In the end, perhaps one plant out of the original 100,000 will make the grade. The new rose will be notable for its color, the firmness of its silken petals or its longevity. His Baccara was the first rose to last for a week after cutting, claims Alain Meilland, but in some recent tests his latest creation, Lovita, stayed in fresh bloom for three weeks.