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Vol. VI 



82.00 a Year. 

 24 Numbers. 



CHICAGO, JUNE i, 1898. 



Single Copy 

 10 Cents. 



No. 138. 



TREE SCULPTURE IN JAPAN. 



Trees and Shrubs. 



JAPANESE TREE SCULPTURE. 

 Whatever may be our ideas regarding 

 the artistic arrangement of cut flowers as 

 practiced by the Japanese people at home, 

 be it of the "ancient school of Shin no-hana 

 or the more modern Ikenobo, we cannot 

 commend their method of starving, twist- 

 ing and torturing certain species of trees 

 and shrubs. We may wonder at the pa- 

 tience exercised, the "skill shown in per- 

 verting the natural tendencies of growth, 

 and look upon the products as mattersof 

 curiosity. The accompanying illustra- 



tion shows a specimen of Japanese handi- 

 craft in what may be termed tree sculp- 

 ture, an art practiced by some who have 

 to depend upon their children to perfect 

 what they themselves commenced, per- 

 haps in early life. This is more particu- 

 larly true in the production of their dwarf 

 evergreens, some of which are known to 

 be over a hundred years old, and yet only 

 two or three feet high, but bearing all the 

 marks of old age. We presume that the 

 artist who conceived this design had the 

 form of a ship in his mind, and bent his 

 energies toward forcing the growth to 

 assume that shape. While the Japanese 

 are undoubtedly expert at this style of 

 contortion, their work of budding and 

 grafting, especially their commercial 



work, is not so perfect as that of Euro- 

 pean and American horticulturists. 



Topiary work was at one time exten- 

 sively practiced in England, almost every 

 evergreen being clipped to some shape, 

 -even so far as to endeavor to represent 

 the human form. Happily this craze has 

 almost passed away. One of the most 

 desirable forms of the topiary art is the 

 maze. There are still some good exam- 

 ples of it in England, one of the best being 

 located at Hampton Court, near London, 

 and consists of a series of paths and 

 hedges so intricate in arrangement as to 

 render escape therefrom exceedingly diffi- 

 cult. Probably the best example of the 

 maze in this country is at Hotel Del 

 Monte, Monterey, Cal. W. C. Egan. 



