dkis 'Tbeasu’ies 
During the last few years, almost unheralded by 
the daily press, one of the greatest mass migrations 
of history has taken place: millions of Chinese have 
departed from their bandit-ridden provinces for 
sparsely settled and relatively arid Manchuria (now 
Manchukuo). Extreme poverty has made only one 
kind of transportation possible: tramp steamer. 
Aboard these vessels, herded like cattle and often 
suffering great privation, the emigrants have been 
able to take with them but few of their personal 
belongings. One thing, however, necessary to the 
establishment of their new homes, will be found 
among the bundles of almost every family: their 
favorite rose bushes. . . . History affords a similar 
instance in the Middle Ages, when the Mohamme¬ 
dans on their march through Northern Africa and 
into Southern Europe brought with them the wild 
iris albicans and germanica — the white and violet 
“intermediates” so widely distributed in old gardens 
today or found growing wild as “escapes.” 
From the simple floral treasures of these indigent 
or primitive peoples to the superb blooms of the 
modern garden is a far call. All of a century of hy¬ 
bridizing by such scientific flower lovers as Verdier, 
Lemon, Vilmorin, Bliss, Mohr, Mitchell, Cayeux 
and the Sass brothers — to mention but a few 
and the introduction from time to time of such spe¬ 
cies as trojana , mesopotamica and amas by Sir Michael 
Foster, W. R. Dykes, and others have effected an 
improvement of the iris with which the develop¬ 
ment of few other flowers can compare, and have 
made it more than ever a cherished embellishment 
of the home and the pride of the fancier’s garden. 
Beauty that would be truly priceless had not nature 
ordained so generous a propagation of this flower, 
today awaits every flower lover who brings the 
modern iris into his garden. 
Two of our lovliest groups of iris today, groups 
which did not even exist until recently, are the 
pinks and the pink blends. Winsome, fragile, 
ethereal, they represent the most “feminine” type 
of iris beauty. We have already described the pink¬ 
est of all iris, “ No-ive-ta” (which means “beauti¬ 
ful” in the language of the Delaware Indians), and 
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