CHAPTER XVIII. 



Dwarfing Trees on Their Own Roots. 



AND now, a few suggestions on the dwarfing of trees on 

 their own roots, after the Japanese method, whereby 

 those people were able to exhibit forest trees at the 

 World's Fair over two hundred years old and only two and 

 three feet high. The principle of the whole process is just 

 what Charles Downing says would be "ideal transplanting," 

 namely, to move with roots entire. Doubtless they do this 

 repeatedly, leaving all the tops on ; also withholding food 

 and water except enough to keep the tree fairly alive until 

 completely dwarfed ; then from generation to generation plant- 

 ing the seed of the dwarfed tree, whatever it may be. Such 

 trees are doubtless the result of many hundreds of years of 

 selection and propagation, handed down as heirlooms. But at 

 the same time it is almost incredible how completely even a 

 vigorous tree like the cottonwood may be dwarfed by a single 

 transplanting with very long roots. To illustrate, I will state 

 that fourteen years ago, when I moved to Hitchcock and 

 planted my orchard, I had such confidence in its success that, 

 wishing to break the force of the strong south winds and 

 keep the fruit from being blown off, I planted a row of cot- 

 tonwood cuttings along the south and long side. About six 

 inches of soil from a shallow ditch was thrown up under the 

 lower wire of the fence, and cuttings planted forty feet apart 

 in the loose soil, the lower ends resting on the unbroken top 

 soil below. My intention was to alternate with sycamore be- 

 tween, but this was never done. Now the limbs of most of 

 them are lapping between, and they tower fully seventy-five 

 feet or more in the air, and several of them are two feet in 

 diameter two feet above ground. This applies generally to 

 all but two. One is about one foot in diameter and thirty-five 

 to forty feet high, and the other about six inches and twenty- 



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