"The dwarf trees of China are curiosities of forestry.  Every child knows how the Chinese cramp their women's feet by bandaging them when they are infants, and thus render it impossible for them to walk.  It is, however, wonderful to see miniature oaks, chestnuts, pines, and cedars, growing in flower-pots, fifty years old and yet not a foot high.  To do this, take a young plant, cut off its tap root, and place it in a basin in which there is good soil kept well watered [sic].  If it grows too rapidly, dig down and shorten in several roots.  Every year the leaves grow smaller, and the little dwarf trees make interesting pets, just as some people raise canary birds, and others squirrels. -- Cultivator. 1

1     Health, a weekly journal of domestic and sanitary science (London), Vol. 3, No. 53, April 11, 1884, pg. 5.

A slightly shorter version of this can then be found in Friends' Intelligencer (Philadelphia, PA), Vol. XLI, No. 22, Seventh Month 12, 1884, pg. 352 and also in Forestry, A Journal of Forest & Estate Management (Edinburgh & London), February 1885, pg. 297.

Some other mentions of dwarf trees stated that very little water is given to the plant, such as in Scientific American, and The Ladies' Companion.

We have not yet found the apparently original article in Cultivator.