Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1903-05-14
DWAFTER TREES OF JAPAN.
Method Used was Long a Mystery.
but Has Now Been Found Out,

but Has Now Been Found Out.
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 skilful and long course Of
pruning and regulation of nutrition.
Albert Maumene has written on the
subject and the Revere Scientifoue
speaks of his work and says that it is
well known that the art of dwarfng
the largest trees is part of the educa-
ton of the japanese upper classes
that it has its schools and celebrities.
Young persons of fortune devote to it
the time thta our young women give
to the piano, which shows a compre-
hension 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 con-
sists not in making beautiful flowers
simply grow and flourish. Their am
bition is greater; trees grown in pots
should recall by their appearance
those that grow on the mountainsides.
on the edges of ravines, and, while re-
mainig small, their majestic forms
and original outlines must be pre-
served. The cultivation of these
of
thence. This dwarfing or, to speak
more exactly, this atrophy of plants
is the result of physiological causes
which are themselves the consequence
either of the processes Of culture en-
ployed or of the environment of the
plants. We must take account of these
two influences at once in the forma-
ton of the lilliputian trees of Japan,
for the Japanese climate plays a pre-
pOnderant part in predisposing vegeta-
ton to remain dwarfed. Great alti-
tude, dry heat, persistent cold, insult
ficiency 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. GA
confer whose top is cut off," remarks
M Vallot, sis 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 dwrafed."
All the cultural operations, whether
on the subject or on its nourishment
such as continued trimming, twist
ing and turning of the branches, trans
planting to small pots, cutting away
roots,-that can paralyze the vital
functions, Obstruct the circulation of
the sap or lessen nutrition, will pro-
woke a stoppage of growth, showing
their effects in a very noticeable re-
duction in height and sometimes in
pare it for dwarfing. This would be
merely matter of time and persever-
ance, if the Japanese did not also use
esthetic feeling and certain art in
the making of their pygmy trees. The
same subjects, though less dwarfed III
their branches, may be met at each
step on mountainsides, in the assures
of rocks and in all situations where
plants struggle for existence against
the elements. The processes en-
ployed by the Japanese are thus not so
unnatural as some have affirmed.
The conifers are the plants that are
chosen preferably for the formation Of
these pygmies; besides these, the oak,
the plum, the bamboo and the cherry
trees are species that take kindly to
dwarfng.