SKETCH OF THE CONIFERS OF JAPAN. 285 



country. Where it does not grow v.-ild it lias become indigenous 

 through culture. Among the people it enjoys a high considera- 

 tion, based upon fables, miraculous tales, prejudices relating to 

 its longevity, &c., and upon its employment in decoration as well 

 as a religious symbol in their ceremonies and fetes. It* is indis- 

 pensable to the true Japanese, and is found wherever he resides. 

 A Wo-matsu and a Mmne (Prunus Mume) are planted as an 

 eternal symbol before the abode of Mikado. Planted in groves, 

 this pine surrounds the chapels of the Sun-God and those of 

 the saints and patrons : it shades the little chapels placed in 

 the ante-courts and the gardens about the Japanese houses. Its 

 branches adorn the great portal and the place of honour in the 

 liall of reception on festive occasions, and bouquets of it placed in 

 vases at the pedestal of tombs vivify with other symbolical flowers 

 the mournful abode of the dead. In pictures tlie holy. crane is 

 represented under the shade of pines placed in the foreground, 

 thus embodying the symbol of happiness and prolonged life ; or 

 the bold pencil of the painter covers with thick snow the spreading 

 branches of a dwarf pine, furnishing an image of winter for the 



saloon of the rich. 



Wum 



avenues of a hundred leagues in length, and pines with a species 

 of Indian date plum planted upon hilloclvs, serve throughout all 



the Empire for marks along the roads. 



The art of the Japanese has exhausted itself in the culti- 

 vation of these pines. They clip and cut them in all manner of 

 ways, they stretch the branches like a fan upon horizontal 

 espaliers, or give to the branches so destroyed the form of a flat 

 plate. In that artificial culture extremes meet — surprise is 

 equally sought to be gained by specimens of immense extent, as by 

 others reduced to the most minute dimensions- During Siebold's 

 sojourn at Ohosaka he went to see the celebrated Pine before the 

 Theebaus Naniwaja,* of which the branches artificially extended 

 have a circuit of 135 paces; on the other hand they showed him at 

 Jedo a dwarf tree planted in a lacquered box, of which the branches 

 did not occupy more than two square inches. Great progress has 

 been made in Japan in the art of grafting and budding different 

 Conifers upon each other, an art so much practised that it has a 

 name for itself both in China and Japan. In Japanese it is called 

 Isugikiy and in Chinese Sesdho. Siebold saw dwarf trees on 



* Tills is probably a combination of Dutcli aud Japanese, meaning the N»ni 

 waja Tea-house, ' 



