In the statehouse at Des Moines, Iowa, at the head of the grand stairway, the visitor 
encounters one of the largest and greatest mural paintings in the world. A symbolic 
picture, entitled Westward , by Edwin H. Blashfield, it depicts a prairie schooner leaving 
the boundaries of civilization for the uncharted West. At one corner of this expansive 
work may be seen a farmer and his wife standing at the edge of the cultivated domain, 
bidding farewell to the voyageurs; in the opposite corner the bleached skull of a bison 
suggests the primaeval prairie wilderness. The white canvas of the prairie schooner is 
lit with the orange-pink light of the setting sun. The pioneers themselves — resolute, 
hopeful — some riding, others walking beside the massive vehicle or the multiple yokes 
of oxen by which it is drawn are preceded by classic figures, white draped, aerial, typi¬ 
fying the hope, vision, and courage which led the early settlers on their way; behind, 
other symbolic figures come bearing the fruits of civilization. 
The movement of peoples involved in the settling of America was, of course, the 
greatest mass-migration in history. The conquest of the continent — the "winning of 
the West" — was the greatest large scale romantic drama humanity has ever participated 
in. Nowhere is the stirring significance of millions of families forsaking old homes, 
severing old ties, following a vision of a better life to be won by sacrifice and struggle 
in a new land more touchingly suggested than in this great mural of which the people 
of our sister State may well be proud. 
The pioneer epoch is long since closed. Song and story and motion picture reflect a 
profound nostalgia for this romantic era. The spirit of the frontier is strong in American 
blood. 
But frontiers are not, of course, exclusively geographical. "Westward" is still the 
American motto in many realms. Astronomers push their frontier ever farther out among 
the stars; against disease science has rapidly expanded its frontier, by no means closed. 
Not the least among the innumerable frontiers we could mention is that of the advance¬ 
ment of beauty, on which patient visionaries known as hybridizers are the Kit Carsons 
and Daniel Boones. 
While our own excursions on the hybridizing frontier have been limited to date, our 
work as a correlator of data about new varieties, as an impartial tester of irises from all 
over the world has been most extensive. Each spring for many years we have travelled 
5 to 10,000 miles, often following the iris season from the sunny South to also-sunny 
California, to Oregon and Washington, back to mid-Western and New England gardens, 
and finally winding up at our own Minnesota fields, —• about the last commercial iris 
plantings in the U. S. to come into bloom. Our northerly location provides an ideal 
opportunity to check the hardiness and general vigor of varieties from all over the coun¬ 
try and from foreign lands — supplementing in a very practical way the observations as 
to the relative beauty of different introductions first made on our travels. 
Every hobbyist has the frontier instinct. If you have not tried flowers as a hobby, 
you are missing something. If you have only old-time varieties in your garden, we invite 
you to move up to the frontier. You will be surprised at the exquisite beauty and extra¬ 
ordinary size of many of the newer irises. The varieties listed for the first time this season 
seem the finest additions we have ever made in a single year. 
By adding some of the finer, newer things to your floral company each season, you 
may enjoy within the narrow confines of a city lot, if need be, a frontier of advancing 
beauty. 
Schreiner s Iris Gardens 
Riverview Station, St. Paul, Minnesota 
Gardens located at 1350 S. Robert St. Telephone: Riverview 3799 
COPYRIGHT 1933, SCHREINER’S IRIS GARDENS 
