The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1903-06-02
DwARFTED TREES OF JAPAN.
The Method Used Was For a Long
Time a Mystery. .


The Japanese are mysterious peo-
pie, and do many interesting and
beautiful things with their hands
and one of their most interesting
arts is the dwarfing of trees and
plants. The method of doing this
was a secret for centuries but it
is now known that it is done by
a skilful and long course of prun-
ing and regulation. Albert Maui
meme has written on the subject, and
the Revere Scientifique speaks of his
work and says that it is well known
that the art of dwarfing the largest
trees is part of the education of the
Japanese upper classes-that it has its
schools and celebrities. Young persons.
of fortune devote to it the time that
our young women give to the piano,
which shows a comprehension of the
things of the artistic life quite different
from ours. For the japanese, in fact
the garden is the outside parlor the
parlor, the inside garden.
The skill of their gardeners consists
not in making beautiful flowers simply
grow and flourish. Their ambition is
greater; trees grown in pots should re-
call by their appearance those that
grow on the mountainsides, on the
edges of ravines, and while remaining
small their majestic forms and original
outlines must be preserved. The Gull
tivation of these trees is a work both
of time and patience. This dwarfing
or, to speak more exactly, this atrophy
of plants is the result of physiological
causes which are themselves the con-
sequence either of the processes of Gull
ture employed or of the environment
of the plants. We must take account
of these two influences at once in the
formation of the lilliputian trees of
Japan, for the Japanese climate plays
a preponderant part in predisposing
vegetation to remain drawfed. Great
altitude dry heat persistent cold, in
sufficiency of nourishment, cramping of
the roots, lack of food in the youth of
the plants, winds that bend or break
the stem-these are some of the ele-
ments that determine the arrest of de-
velopment of the plants that every one
has observed in excursions to the
mountains, among the rocks of the
coast and in arid places in general. "A
confer whose top is cut off" remarks
Nj. Vallot, lis arrested for time; if
this operation is performed anew every
time the tree begins to recover the
time of arrest will become longer and
longer, and the tree will remain knotty,
deformed and dwarfed.'
| All the cultural Operations, whether
on ithe subject or on it's nourishment-
such as continued trimming twisting
and turning of the branches, trans
planting to small pots, cutting away
roots,-Ihat can paralyze the vita.
functions, obstruct the circulation OF
the sap or lessen nutrition, will pro-
yoke a stoppage of growth, showing
their effects in a very noticeable re-
duction in hight and sometimes in de-
formation of the plant, and thus pre-
pare it for dwarfing- This would be
merely matter of cine and persever-
ance, if the Japanese did not also use
esthetic feeling and : certain art in
the making of their pygmy trees. Tho
same subjects. though less dwarfed in
their branches, may be met al each
step on mountainsides, in the fisuraS OF
rocks anu in all situations where plants
struggle for existence against the elc-
ments. The processes employed by the
Japan use are thus not SO unnatural -
some have affirmed.
| The conlfers are the plants that are
chosen preferably for the formation OF
! these pygmies; besides these, the oak
| the plum, the bambe4 and the cherry
trees are species that take kindY 20
dwrafing.