September 6, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



373 



the lower course of the Guadaloupe River (Victoria, Mohr) 

 to the upper waters of the Trinity River. A remarkable 

 fact in the distribution of these three trees is their association 

 west of the Appalachian Mountains for distances of such wide 



Mobile, Ala. C. Mofir. 



Dwarfing Plants in Japan. 



AT a meeting of the nurserymen's section of the Horti- 

 cultural Congress, recently held at Chicago, Mr. 

 Henry Izawa, gardener of the Imperial Japanese Com- 

 mission to the Columbian Exposition, read a paper on 

 some Japanese nursery practice, from which we make the 

 following extracts : 



The art of dwarfing plants is so little known in other lands 

 that a short description of its process is not out of place here. 

 The successful Japanese nurseryman must not only be a good 

 grower, but he must also be an artist, conversant with the 

 general arts and customs of his country, which differ very 

 materially with those of any other country. The Pines may be 

 considered the most important of all trees in Japan, and great 

 care is taken in their cultivation and preservation. The most 

 popular ones are Pinus densiflora, Pinus parviflora and Pinus 

 Thunbergii. They are generally grown from seed, and great 

 care is taken to select the choicest quality of seed. In the 

 spring of the second year, when the seedlings are about eight 

 inches in height, they are staked with Bamboo-canes and tied 

 with rice straw, the plants being bent in different desirable 

 shapes. In the next tall they are transplanted to a richer soil 

 and are well fertilized. In the following spring the plants are 

 restaked and twisted and tied in fanciful forms. This mode 

 of treatment is given until the seventh year, when the trees 

 will have assumed fairly large proportions, the branches being 

 trained in graceful forms, and the foliage like small clouds of 

 dense green. The plants are now taken up and placed in pots 

 one and a half feet in diameter, and are kept well watered 

 every succeeding year ; great care must be taken to keep new 

 shoots pinched back. After another three years of this treat- 

 ment, the trees are virtually dwarfed, there being no visible 

 growth thereafter. 



The dwarfing of Bamboo is another important branch of the 

 Japanese nursery business. A few weeks after the shoots begin 

 to grow, and when the trunks measure about three inches in 

 circumference and five feet in height, the bark is removed, 

 piece by piece, from the joint. After five weeks, when the 

 plants get somewhat stout, the stem is bent and tied in. After 

 three months, when the side-shoots grow strong enough, they 

 are all cut off five or six inches from the main trunk ; they are 

 then dug up and potted in sand. Care should be taken not to 

 use any fertilizer, but plenty of water should be given. Cut 

 off the large shoots every year, in May or June, and after three 

 years the twigs and leaves will present admirable yellow and 

 green tints. 



Dwarfed Thuyas are produced by grafting. Let a Thuya 

 Lobbi seedling grow in fertile soil until it becomes about five 

 feet in height, then in the middle of spring we cut off all the 

 branches, leaving the trunk and top branch. With a quarter- 

 inch chisel a cut is made in the thickest portion of the trunk, 

 an inch deep, at distances of two or three inch space, so that 

 the trunk can be bent more easily in the desired direction. 

 Rice straw is twisted around the trunk, which is bent in many 

 curious forms and fanciful shapes. In the spring of the second 

 year of this treatment the plants are potted in rich soil; in 

 two years more, when the plants have assumed permanent 

 forms, Thuya obtusa is grafted on the stem of T. Lobbi. 



The process of grafting is, in brief, as follows : We give 

 plenty of ferhlizer to the plant of Thuya Lobbi, and, in early 

 spring, take two-inch shoots of Thuya obtusa, cut the ends 

 slantwise and insert them in the smaller portions of the Thuya 

 Lobbi trunk, usin^ one graft to every inch on the trunk. We 

 then wrap the grafts with rice straw and take them to a shaded, 

 windless room with the temperature of thirty-five degrees 

 Fahrenheit. For three weeks the temperature is raised one 

 or two degrees daily, and by that time a little breeze may be 

 admitted ; the temperature of the room is kept at sixty degrees 

 for two weeks, and at seventy degrees for two weeks, and then 

 leaves will start from the grafted twigs. In the latter part of 

 spring, when the temperature in and out-of-doors becomes 

 uniform, the plants can be safely transferred to some shady 

 position out-of-doors. In the fall, when all the grafts have 

 taken good hold, all the remaining shoots of Thuya Lobbi are 

 cut off. Transplant every year in good rich soil ; six years will 

 be sufficient to produce handsome specimens of dwarfed 



Thuyas. All kinds of Conifers are treated in a similar manner. 

 There is also a great demand for curiosities in mixed grafted 

 Conifers, that is, six or seven kinds of Conifers on one plant. 



Maples form one of the best materials for the artistic fancies 

 of the Japanese graftsman. Many times a great many different 

 varieties are grafted on one stem. Seedling Maples are spliced 

 and tied together when growing. After they have formed a 

 union the desired shoot is cut off — this is kept up until ten or 

 twenty varieties are obtained. Maples thus grafted form lovely 

 features for lawns, their varying hues and types of foliage en- 

 hancing each other's beauty. 



The aesthetic idea shows itself in every line of Japanese in- 

 dustry, and especially is it the case with our nursery and land- 

 scape gardeners. The most inexperienced need not fear any 

 difficulty in our mode of gardening if he but uses his mind and 

 efforts in the right direction. The skillful artist introduces 

 into his miniature garden not regular gfeometrical forms, but 

 anything odd, irregular and artistic. To us gardening is not 

 mathematics, but an art ; hills, dales, rivulets, waterfalls, 

 bridges, etc., vie with each other in presenting their quaintest 

 forms and fancies and harmonious symmetries. Dwarfed 

 plants of all descriptions deck the scene here and there in 

 thousands of peculiarly artistic shapes. We derive lessons 

 from nature and strive to imitate her as much as is practicable, 

 although on a smaller scale. 



■ Plants on the Pribyloff Islands. 



A MONO the commonest and most conspicuous flowers 

 ■^"^ growing on the Pribyloff Islands are Papaver nudicaule 

 and Aconitum Napellus, var. delphinifolium, Seringe. Though 

 the Iceland Poppy, Papaver nudicaule, is found in a few lo- 

 calities on the Aleutian Islands, the Pribyloff Islands may be 

 taken as its southern limit of abundance in Behring Sea ; on 

 these islands it is to be seen everywhere. On hill-tops or 

 slopes with a northern or eastern exposure the plants are low, 

 and the flowers small, a tuft of them resembling in every re- 

 spect plants of the same species seen by the writer on high 

 mountain-tops in British Columbia, and along the shores of 

 Hudson Bay. It is in upland meadows or among sand-dunes 

 that this lovely Poppy is to be seen in its glory. There it at- 

 tains a height of from nine to twelve inches, while many of its 

 blossoms are two, or even two and a half, inches in diameter. 

 When growing among grass or other flowers it does not form 

 tufts, but in favorable situations among sand-dunes clumps 

 several feet in diameter are common, its lemon-yellow flowers 

 forming such large masses that they can be readily seen from 

 vessels half a mile from the shore. 



Aconitum Napellus, var. delphinifolium, presents even 

 greater variation as regards size and general appearance. 

 In exposed situations the short slender stem is scarcely 

 longer than the single blossom which crowns it, while among 

 the Elymus and Calamagrostis of the low grounds it grows to 

 from two and a half to three feet in height, is sometimes much- 

 branched, and, altogether, seems quite a different plant. Speci- 

 mens of this species sometimes differ much more widely from 

 one another in general appearance than the larger ones do 

 from A. Kamtschatchense, a nearly related, but quite distinct, 

 species, which grows with the other in low situations, and is 

 seldom separated from it by collectors. 



Ottawa, Canada. J ames M. MacOUfl. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Lilium giganteum. 



ALTHOUGH this Lily was introduced to cultivation 

 more than forty years ago, it is seldom seen, and this 

 can be accounted for, perhaps, by the fact that it is not 

 considered reliably hardy. Here in eastern IMassachusetts 

 it has stood the tests of two winters, one of more than or- 

 dinary severity, with no more protection than that given 

 to many plants that we consider hardy. This would seem 

 to prove that in this latitude, at least, it can reasonably be 

 called a hardy Lily. Clumps of it growing among tall 

 shrubs have a very bold and imposing effect, and such a 

 position seems admirably suited to it, since it aflfords not 

 only a partial shade, but what is of the first importance, 

 protection from high winds. 



The illustration on page 376 is from a photograph of a 

 group of these Lilies growing on the estate of Mr. John 

 Simpkins, Yarmouthport, Massachusetts. The bulbs were 

 imported from England in the fall of 1890, in two sizes, 



