54 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



although dwarf, they must preserve their majestic shapes and natural 

 outlines. 



Next to the artistic part, the treatment of these trees is all a matter of 

 time, and it needs the skilful fingers of the Japanese, their light and 

 accurate manipulation, and their sense of what is necessary to bend, twist, 

 and tie down those frail branches from the offspring of giants, and to 

 make lilliputian trees which will live to 100 years or more. 



Fig. 6.— Maplk, 250 years old. (J. Carter & Co.) 



Japanese Esthetics. — The Japanese, who have invented the art of 

 dwarfing things, prefer the tiny trees and lilliputian forests (which seem 

 BO odd to our eyes), rather than the lofty forest trees, venerable shades, and 

 the free growth of plant life. These tiny trees, when planted in little 

 jardinieres or in very shallow trays or pans, have all the appearance 

 and the characteristics in miniature of their congeners growing freely in 

 the open ; and the majority bear the marks of time as well as such 

 obvious traces of their treatment as knotted and deformed trunks, twisted 

 and deformed branches, and scanty, limited foliage. 



The aspirations and tastes of Orientals are different from our own ; 

 they hold fast to their national traditions, and particularly to those of 



