DWARFING. 
‘small spikes, and they are succeed- 
ed by dark-purple berries. 
Dwarr Fan-patm.—Chame‘rops 
humilis—This plant is the hardiest | 
of the Palm tribe, and it will suc- 
ceed if planted out on a lawn, and 
slightly protected durmg severe 
frosts. It should be grown in rich 
mould, well drained, and occasion- 
ally watered. When planted out 
on a lawn, a pit should be dug for 
it about two feet deep; at the bot- 
tom of which should be two or three 
layers of pebbles, to ensure drain- 
age, and then the pit filled up with 
rich sandy loam. ‘Thus treated, 
and protected during severe winters 
by a moveable frame of canvass, 
stretched on hoops, or of basket- 
work, it will grow vigorously, and 
live many years.—See PRorectIna. 
Dwarrine. — In some cases, 
where there is very little room, it 
may be desirable to know how to ob- 
tain dwarf trees; though generally 
speaking they are, like all unnatu- 
_ral objects, im bad taste, and rather 
disagreeable than pleasing. When- 
ever Chinese buildings are intro- 
duced, however, a few dwarf-stunt- 
ed elms in China vases should be 
placed near them; as in China it is 
said that no garden is considered 
complete without several of these 
little monsters. ‘The mode of mak- 
ing them is to take a ring of bark 
off one of the branches of a full- 
grown Elm tree, and to surround it 
with earth wrapped in moss, which 
should be kept constantly moist, by 
water being thrown on it several 
times a day, or by a vessel being 
suspended over it, so contrived that 
the water may ooze out a drop at a 
time, and thus be continually and 
regularly falling on the moss. In 
the course of a few weeks, the 
branch will have thrown out roots; 
and when this is supposed to be the 
case, it should be detached from 
the parent tree, and planted with 
the moss still round it in a small 
194 
ee 
DWARFING 
pot in very ‘poor soil; as soon as it 
begins to grow, it should be shifted 
into another pot a little larger ; and 
this shifting should be repeated 
| several times, into larger and larger 
pots, always using poor stony or 
gravelly soil, and giving the plant 
very little water. Thus treated, 
the plant will soon become a little 
stunted tree, bearing all the marks 
of old age ; and looking like a pooi 
decrepit old man, bent double with 
age. It is obvious that other forest- 
trees might be dwarfed in the same 
manner; so that a miniature forest 
might easily be formed, the Oaks 
assuming a gnarled and rugged 
character, and bearing acorns, and 
the Pines and Firs with rough fur- 
rowed bark, and covered with cones, 
and yet the whole not above two 
feet high. 
Another mode of dwarfing lig- 
neous plants is employed to throw 
them into flowers or fruit. It is 
found that many stove-plants only 
bear fruit at the extremity of their 
branches; and that our hothouses 
are not large enough to permit them 
to attain the requisite size. Cuttings 
are therefore made from the points 
of the shoots ; and when these grow, 
other cuttings are made from their 
shoots. In this way small compact 
plants are obtained, the wood of 
which may be more easily ripened 
than that of large plants, and which 
seldom fail to produce flowers and 
fruit. Professor Van Mons practised 
this mode of dwarfing to obtain 
fruit from his seedling pears sooner 
than he could otherwise have done. 
Another mede of dwarfing trees 
and shrubs is by grafting them on 
other low-growing species of the 
same, or some nearly allied, genus ; 
thus, for example, the common 
Horse-chestnut, Ai sculus Hippo- 
castanum, may be grafted Pa- 
via humilis, which does ntiiecrow 
above three or four feet high; the 
Azarole, or any of the large Amer- 
