DWARFING OF VEGETABLES

DWARFING OF VEGETABLES, an art invented by the Chinese, to which the attention of Sir George Staunton was attracted on the following occasion:

When the embassy was at Chusan (See CHUSAN in this Supplement), the gentlemen who went on shore were introduced to the governor in his hall of audience, where on several tables were placed, in frames filled with earth, dwarf pines, oaks, and orange trees, bearing fruit. None of them exceeded in height two feet. Some of those dwarfs bore all the marks of decay from age; and upon the surface of the soil were interspersed small heaps of stones, which, in proportion to the adjoining dwarfs, might be termed rocks. These were honey-combed and moss-grown, as if untouched for ages, which served to maintain the illusion, and to give an antique appearance to the whole. This kind of stunted vegetation seemed to be much relished by the curious in China; and specimens of it were to be found in every considerable dwelling. To produce them formed a part of the gardener's skill, and was an art invented in that country. Beside the mere merit of overcoming a difficulty, it had that of introducing vegetables into common apartments, from which their natural size must otherwise have excluded them.

The general method of obtaining vegetable dwarfs is said to be the following: A quantity of clay or mould is applied to the upper part of the trunk of a tree, from which a dwarf is intended to be taken and close to its division into branches. The mold is to be confined to the spot by coarse hempen or cotton cloth, and to be carefully kept moist by water. In consequence of this application, continued sometimes above a twelvemonth, small tender fibres shoot down like roots from the wood into the mould. The part of the trunk emitting those new fibres, together with the branch rising immediately above it, is then to be carefully separated from the rest of the tree, and planted in new earth, in which the fibres become new roots, while the former branch is now the stem of the vegetable thus transformed in some measure. This operation does not destroy or alter the productive faculty which those parts enjoyed before their separation from their parent root. That which, while a branch of the original tree, bore flowers and fruit, continues to produce the same, though no longer supported upon any stock. The terminal buds of such branches of trees as are meant to become dwarfs are torn off; which circumstance prevents the further elongation of those branches, and forces other buds and branchlets from the sides. These branchlets are bent by wires to whatever form the operator wishes: and when the appearance of age and decay is meant to be given to a dwarf tree, it is repeatedly smeared with treacle or molasses, which attracts multitudes of ants, who, in pursuit of those sweet juices, attack the bark, and, by a gradual corrosion of it, produce the desired effect. These different processes are sometimes attempted to be kept secret by the gardeners, and they vary designedly in the mode of carrying them on; but the principle on which they are founded is sufficiently apparent from what is related here; and the contrivance argues ingenuity and perseverance, rather than the practice does true taste, which consists in assisting nature in its most favourite works—not in counteracting its operations or distorting its productions.