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XXXV. Account of the Method of Dwarfing Trees and 

 Shrubs, as practised by the Chinese, including their Flan of 

 Propagation from Branches. By John Livingstone, 

 Esq. of Macao in China, Corresponding Member of the Hor- 

 ticultural Society. 



Read, June 20, 1820. 



However much a correct taste may depreciate the art of 

 dwarfing Trees and Shrubs, no doubt can be well enter- 

 tained that the subject possesses some attractions to physio- 

 logists, since it may, in several respects, extend our infor- 

 mation regarding the laws of organic life. 



Lord Bacon is the only early writer who appears to have 

 heard of the practice of dwarfing. In the sixth century of 

 his Sylva Sykarum, paragraph 535, we find it stated, that 

 « Trees are generally set of roots, or kernels, but if you set 

 them of slips, (as of some trees you may, by name the Mul- 

 berry) some of the slips will take ; and those that take (as is 

 reported) will be dwarf trees/' In the preceding para- 

 graph he mentions another report regarding dwarfs, which 

 clearly shews that the method was not then well understood in 

 England, or, if ever known, was possibly then, as it is now, 

 among the artes perditce. 



Before Lord Bacon's time, the Polo family had imparted 

 to the learned of Europe many facts regarding the arts in 

 China; and it is probable, that the art of printing, the 

 composition of gunpowder, the polarity of the needle, the 



