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Chinese Method of Dwarfing Trees. -- The Chinese are remarkable for their taste in wishing to have
even the most stupendous objects in nature in miniature: mountains, rocks, lakes, rivers, aged trees, must all be represented
and modelled upon a scale of a few inches. The former are formed of natural fragments, curiously and fantastically
cemented together, leaving water-tight hollows and little channels, to represent lakes and rivers. The dwarfed trees are,
however, very curiously trained, requiring considerable skill, and a considerable period of time, to get the trees into the
desired form. The trees which they commonly choose to train as dwarfs are, their native juniper (J. chinensis), the dwarf elm (Ulmus pumila), and the Indian fig (F. indica). The means employed in dwarfing these plants are, -- keeping them always in the same pot -- allowing but little earth for them to grow in, the pot being half filled with rugged stones, which jut out of the surface; among these some of the roots are brought out, [388] twisted together, and the points again buried in the soil; no more water is given than but barely keeps the plants alive. The bark of the stem and branches is torn and mangled in all manner of ways; sometimes a branch is slipped from the stem, but not entirely off, so as to hang downward, and kept in that position by wire. By wires, also, the tortuous direction of the shoots are given; and being repeatedly stopped, and the half of every leaf cut off, tends materially to check all vegetative inherent vigor, and in time produces a vegetable cripple. When the native vigor is thus subdued, the plant becomes subject to moss, lichens, and every weather-stain so desirable on such an object, to give the idea of hoar antiquity to a plant only of ten or a dozen years' growth. Such dwarfed trees are considered valuable; and some of the merchants imagine that they cannot make a more acceptable present to a European friend, than one of those dwarfed trees! -- (Paxton's Hort. Reg.) 1 |
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1 The American Gardener's Magazine, and Register of Useful Discoveries
and Improvements in Horticulture and Rural Affairs (Boston), Vol. II, October 1836, in Miscellaneous Intelligence. Art. I.
General Notices, pp.
387-388.
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