| "Dwarfed Plants, They Are Normal In All But Size" by Albert A. Hansen (1930), the seven paragraph article contains these two paragraphs: The principle of dwarfing plants by a starvation process has been utilized in China and Japan in the production of the famous oriental pigmy trees. The process, termed Tsukurimono by the Japanese, is perfectly simple, consisting merely of continual pruning of the root systems of young trees combined with light cutting of the branches to induce more compact foliage and to prevent the loss of too much moisture. By this method a cedar tree three hundred and fifty years old was produced that is barely a foot in height. These tiny "trees of life" are exceedingly popular in China and Japan and they created a sensation when first introduced into Europe and America. Occasionally the wily oriental pigmy gardener gives his young dwarfs an aged appearance by covering them with a sugar solution and allowing ants to attack the sweet coating. They eat into the bark and the juvenile plants taken on the weather-beaten appearance of hoary old age. The seeds produced by aged trees artificially stunted will not produce dwarfs in turn. However, the dwarfing characteristic can be perpetuated artificially by vegatative propagation. The bark of a limb is slit a number of times and soil bound around the injured part. If the soil is kept moist, roots will appear and the cutting can be made by this means that will develop into a dwarf offspring. I |
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1 Hansen, Albert A. "Dwarfed Plants, They Are Normal In All But Size," Nature Magazine, August, 1930, pp. 121, 130. |