THE JAPANESE DWARF TREES. 



63 



sufficiently to prevent the young plant from perishing. As soon as it is 

 long enough, this shoot is made to take the form of a letter S, or it is 

 bent in different shapes, or when it has become woody, and has been 

 rendered very pliant by being deprived of water until it begins to droop, 

 it is tied as a string might be into several knots. This operation, which 

 is especially practised on pines, checks their development and makes them 

 grow in an unusual manner at the collar. When the branches are 

 developed, those which are not cut off are twisted, and in due time and in pro- 

 portion to their length so fastened to the trunk as to make them take an 

 irregular growth, sinuous, zigzag, either vertical, horizontal, or oblique, 

 according to the idea aimed at. 



Fig. 13. — Oak, 150 years old, showing Brick embedded in Trunk. 

 (J. Carter & Co.) 



Arrangement of the Branches. — The frequent nipping-off of buds, 

 and the use of numerous, almost invisible, fastenings of brass wire or of 

 very fine slips of bamboo, assist considerably in keeping the plant in the 

 form which it is desired it should have. 



When a branch dies, another is selected or it may be replaced by 

 grafting. 



In many cases, and especially among conifers, the trunk of a young 

 tree is twisted round a support as if it were a climbing plant. This 

 explains the spiral form of certain trunks of Thuya, and especially those 

 of pines. The support employed is either a stout length of bamboo, 

 which is subsequently taken away, or the trunk of a tree fern, or again 



