The little
Japanese trees exhibited in the windows of the better grade Japanese novelty shops
never fail to excite considerable interest, because they are so
unusual. In fact, in Japanese horticulture the art of landscape
gardening on a miniature scale plays as important, if not a leading rôle. A village or a single home, surrounded by beautiful country,
will be formed within a plot of ground a few yards square by the
Japanese artisans. A river with its bridges, a lake with tiny ships
on its silvery surface, roads, gardens, fields – all these features
are to be found in the more pretentious Japanese miniature works.
Hence it is not surprising to learn that the Japanese, in order to
carry out their miniature landscape gardening with the utmost realism
and fidelity, have had to raise dwarf trees for this purpose.
So the custom of dwarf
trees has become an established one in Japan, some of these trees
attaining the age of 200 years. The whole system of culture of these
tiny trees may be summed up as the reversal of nature’s method. It
really consists not in the survival of the fittest, but rather in the
survival of the unfittest, so to speak. A poor, weak seed is usually
chosen and planted. As soon as it has attained some growth, the
leading shoot is trimmed off. The little plant then grows two other
shoots, and these are carefully watched. When one shoot exhibits a
strength that is vitally greater than its fellow, it is at once cut
off and the weaker shoot left untouched in order to form the future
dwarf tree’s main stem or trunk. This system of trimming and cutting
is followed punctiliously. Water is seldom used – only in such small
quantities as to keep the little plant actually alive. The tree is
kept in a pot too small for its full development and the roots are
constantly pruned. The shoots are carefully trained and bent to
follow the growth of a large tree.
All of which, it goes without saying, requires great patience;
but this is a commodity with which the sons of Nippon are endowed to a
degree approached by few of the Caucasian races, and the Japanese
horticulturist never tires of watching the growth of his tiny trees.
When such a tree has been growing for about five years, it can be left
to take care of itself, since it has become accustomed through its
training to follow the rigid course laid out for it, and can then be
trusted not to strike out again in the pursuit of its natural size and
vigor. In this manner magnificent specimens of dwarf trees are
produced which compare favorably with anything found among their big
brothers in the untrained forests of Japan.
1
FOOT NOTES
1
Scientific American, June 11, 1921, pg. 473.
