47 
cover them with fluid honey, or with dissolved sugar ; that 
they afterwards paint them with a camel's hair pencil, using 
the same material, and that they afterwards introduce into 
the little box, which serves as a greenhouse for these mar- 
vellous pygmies, a nest of little ants, whose eggs soon hatch 
and produce an active colony greedy of sugar, and inces- 
santly running over the plants, which, although alive, have 
really been converted into a cold preserve. Gardeners know 
very well that aphides, scale-insects, the cocci and other 
vegetable leprosies do in fact torture and distort plants till 
they are quite disfigured. The everlasting play of these 
insects, which are always running over every part of the 
plant, keeps up a peculiar excitement which ends in pro- 
ducing the state of dwarfness in question. At least that is 
what the Japanese say. 
The Fir of which Dr. Siebold spoke, in the paragraph 
above quoted, as being only three inches high, and growing 
on the second stage of the box, was the Pinus Massoniana, 
the Wo maiza of the Japanese, or the Kok sjo of the Chinese. 
Thunberg mistook it for the Scotch Fir. Its history is very 
curious, and is also given in the Flora Japonica (p. 25, vol. 2.). 
Of all the Conifers we generally found this the commonest 
. through the whole empire of Japan. In places where it 
does not grow wild, it has been universally cultivated. It 
has a great reputation on account of the fables, miraculous 
stories, and idle tales of all sorts, mixed up with its history, 
and is a religious symbol.in the ceremonies and festivals of 
the people. A true Japanese cannot possibly dispense with 
it, and takes care to have it wherever he lives. A Wo 
Matza and a Mume are planted before the residence of 
Mikado. It forms groves round the temple of the Sun-god, 
of saints, and of holy men; and it overshadows all the little 
chapels and gardens adjoining the dwelling-houses, &c. &c. 
—— On the high road it forms alleys a hundred leagues 
long ; and the course of every highway is marked by hillocks 
planted with this Pine and species of Nettle trees. 
The art of the Japanese gardener is exhausted in the 
cultivation of these Pines. They are clipped and cut into all 
sorts of shapes; their branches are spread into fans, or 
horizontal trellisses, and are thus fashioned into a sort of flat 
dish. In this kind of gardening extremes are made to touch, 
July—G. H 
