america in turmoil, live sunday at 8:30 a.m. on "washington journal" and on "american history tv" on c-span3. mark: the tyler rose garden is one of the city's major attractions. right now we will here from one of the city's major growers who will share some of the history of the industry and how it fares today. [birds] mark: the rose industry and tyler began around at the turn-of-the-century in the early 1900's. it began as a crop that came into being after there was a devastation of peaches that were raised here in the area. the farmers were looking for an alternative crop, and some of the beginnings began with people that had some european roots that knew about roses and had interest in roses. and they started bringing that

industry here into the tyler area. it caught on and grew into a multimillion dollar industry and encompassed a whole lot of growers in the region. our weather and soil in this area are very conducive to growing roses. we have generally a sandy loam soil, slightly acidic, our winters our normal winters have good cooling and chilling times that since the roses into dormancy which is good for them but then also we have an abundant amount of rainfall which is good for growing not only roses, but other agricultural crops as well. so it was a perfect climate and a perfect situation. roses were grown in the field. 200,000 to field was 300,000 plants in the field, around 20,000 plants per acre. the crops growing in the field were a two-your crop. of course you had mainly grafted roses. there are different ways to grow roses. one is grafted, and one is the

on-root method. on-root is when you take a cutting from the plant. that is really popular today. it is more economical. the plant seems to do better on their own root system, but not all roses can be grown that way. but back in the beginning most everything was grown from the grafted method here in the area and on the acreage in the land surrounding the tyler area. today the industry has changed. the processing plants are still here, but there has been a lot of investment from the local processors in the area and field and growers in california and arizona. and one of the reasons for that was the devastating freeze here in the 1980's. with the roses being a two-your crop, we had a severe hard freeze in december in the early 1980's, and it took out a lot of the growers and a lot of the crop reduction. it really devastated it. it was hard for the growers to get back into production because interest rates at that time were

about 18%, some of the folks who remember. back in the 1980's interest rates were not as low with current markets that we have now. so some of the growers left. we started looking in fields in bakersfield, california, phoenix , arizona, and most of the production is in those areas. those plants, however, are shipped into this area by refrigerated trucks, still go through our processing facilities and are shipped back out for sale, post sale and retail sales in the u.s. and other countries. the rose festival in this area began from garden roots and people interested in the industry and it kind of evolved. it began as small small garden , meetings, then it turned into a festival, and then the festival turned into a parade. so it became a really big event in october, and it would bring people from all over the world to tyler for our rose festival.

the rose festival still goes on today. we still celebrate the industry and the heritage and the history of the roses in tyler, and we do have our beautiful garden that we have for display of the roses. it has went through some evolution and changes over the years as well. it was a wpa project at the beginning when the garden was built, and now today there are different varieties of roses on display for people to walk through and see, and see what varieties they may like to see in their yard or available from market also from the different processors and retail nurseries around. our rose garden not only has the garden, but we have a municipal building that has been refurbished and redone over the years from its original construction. and there is a wonderful museum that people can go in and learn the history of the heritage of the rose interesting, here not only from tyler but how it

evolved and got here from its roots in europe and other parts of the world, how the rose industry involved and became located here in tyler, texas. announcer 1: our cities tour staff recently traveled to tyler, texas to learn about his rich history. learn more about tyler and other stops on our tour at first -- at c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching "american history tv," all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. "american history tv is on c-span3 every weekend featuring museum tours, archival films and programs on the presidency, the civil war, and more. here is a clip from a recent program. >> and we would probably never have heard about dolly madison, certainly not dolly, but legality for epidemic swept through philadelphia in the summer of 1793. it killed her in-laws, then it

killed her husband and infant son on the same day. butwas actually -- sick recovered. i times she meets congressman james madison, she has had a lot of grief in her life. a young widow and toddler son, not only certain to attract a fair share of interest in philadelphia, and the acquaintance later wrote about her, her smile, her conversation, her manners are so engaging that it is no wonder that such a young widow with her fine blue eyes and large shared animation should be indeed a queen of hearts. so i have got some props next. she is a 26-year-old widow. he is a 43-year-old bachelor. [laughter] >> and i could not help myself. she is voluptuous at five foot

eight, he is a slender, depending if you liked him. if you didn't like him, he was 5'2". on the surface they really did not have much in common, but in the years ahead, their marriage is a loving reunion and a political ownership that would never see the likes of. announcer 2: you can watch this and other american history programs on our website where all of our video is archived. that is c-span.org/history. announcer 1: up next on "american history tv," the dedication ceremony for the crew member monument at arlington national cemetery. speakers included over vietnam war helicopter pilots and members ofthe association lobbie .monument toured over almost 5000 pilots were killed during the war. bob: goote