It looks like some use of Ragged Robin continued after 1940, tho it was on the way out by then. (I wish I knew how early RR began to be used that way.)

I have even wondered sometimes if "Grandmother's Hat" might not have been yet another locally-used rootstock. That could account for its wide distribution, and lack of recognition. I began to wonder about that, when I saw our double Ragged Robin blooming GramHat Pink.

Jeri

Dr. Huey doesn't like alkaline wet clay in my zone 5a. It could not survive in a wet spot, I had to put in an own-root waterhog. All Dr. Huey's roots disappear in all 6 Knock-outs & Flower-carpet in a wet clay bed. They grew their own-roots, become small shrubs.

Dr. Huey makes Knock-outs less hardy. Knock-outs are listed as zone 4b, but Dr. Huey is zone 6b. The graft-ones get die back to the crown in my zone 5a, and doesn't sprout new canes until late May. I had an own-root Easy Elegance that bloomed 1 month ahead of Knock-outs, so did own-root Austins, Lynnie, and others in pots.

Here's quote from the link below: "Also hardiness is effected by budding/grafting. As the root-stocks growth trait can be to grow on into late fall early winter it will force the rose variety attached to it to do the same even though it's genes tell it not to. Thus you can get a lot of winter kill on what was supposed to be a "hardy rose bush variety". ... Own-roots tend to live longer due to not having a bud or graft union that calluses and hardens over time leaving little space on which new shoots can emerge."

Yes, it's tragic when I spent several hundred dollars buying Big roses in 2-gallons pots, all grafted on Dr. Huey and lost to a winter, 15 years ago - and I still remember the loss due to canker in wet clay. Niels in Denmark with wet clay and mostly Grafted, lost 1/3 of roses this past winter.

There's the huge size that comes with Dr. Huey. Rosefolly got rid of her grafted William Shakespeare (too big), there's plenty of pics. in HMF and GardenWeb showing how big William Shakespeare Grafted on Dr. Huey with octopus canes (even in cold zone). I got mine as own-root and love it the second year, lots of blooms, very small & compact. The first year it was wimpy, busy growing its roots - but that was worth the wait for a healthy cutie pie now loaded with blooms, much less water and space needed when it's a miniflora size.

This is a pink bud, photographed this past spring, on the now 7-ft-tall plant in our garden:

Here is the blooms we collected, from which our plant was propagated:

Note that it reverted to the normal red color here, and it blooms that way about 97% of the time.

Jeri