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Isabel Anderson
(1877-1948), born Isabel Weld Perkins, was a Boston-area heiress who married
Larz Anderson, a
young Harvard-educated diplomat from an affluent and prestigious Cincinnati family.
They were married in Boston in 1897 and embarked on a life of luxury combined with
public service and adventure. They traveled widely, making four trips around
the world and throughout Europe and Asia. Anderson held a number of diplomatic
posts, including a short stint as U.S. Ambassador to Japan. She wrote a number
of books including those that concern her family specifically, several travelogues
and volumes of poetry. "Her husband was appointed by President Taft in 1912 Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of His Majesty the Mikado, and the whole time of their sojourn in Dai Nippon was filled with experiences seldom vouchsafed to foreigners. They witnessed functions to which they were admitted only because of their official position; they were granted every facility for seeing aspects of Japanese life which ordinary visitors would have infallibly missed, and they became acquainted with the very flower of Japanese civilization. Mrs. Anderson took copious notes and she has utilized these in the preparation of her most delightful and illuminating volume. It is so naturally and unostentatiously written that one almost forgets to be amazed at the intimacy of the pictures: one enters the Imperial palaces and attends Court functions as simply as one would go to an afternoon tea at home. Then perhaps suddenly comes the realization of what a privilege it is to be admitted to see through her keenly observant eyes the penetralia so jealously hidden from the general throng." 1 |
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The Spell of Japan
(1914):
"The dwarf trees, that looked so strange when we first saw them, soon became to us one of the delightful features of gardening in Japan. These, as well as the gardens themselves, originated in the love of nature, the Japanese wishing to have about them reduced copies of trees which they admired. As the demand for these pigmies has greatly increased in recent years and the process of dwarfing is slow, Japanese florists have discovered a way of making them by a speedier method. When they find old, stunted trees that have taken on unusual shapes - those that have become gnarled and twisted by growing among rocks are especially good for this purpose - they cut them back very closely, root and branch, then leave them to grow for a time in the soil. After this they take up the plants carefully without disturbing the earth immediately about the roots, and place them in [345] pots. Trees even one hundred years old have been successfully treated in this way. "But this is not 'real dwarfing,' which was described to me by my Japanese gardener. For this process, if you wish to keep the tree very small, it is raised from seed sown in a pot. After the seedling has made the growth of the first year, it is taken up, and the earth is carefully shaken off the roots and replaced with soil adapted to the special needs of the tree, which is allowed to grow for two or three years. Then it is time to begin trimming it into shape, and here the same symbolic arrangement is followed as in Ike-bana, based upon the three main branches, Heaven, Man and Earth. Root-pruning must also be started after the growing season is over, and the larger roots cut away, leaving only the finer ones. If the branches run out too far in one direction, their growth is stopped by cutting off the roots on that side. A tree that is to be kept very small is not repotted until the roots have filled the pot; one that is to make a larger growth is transferred at an earlier date. By scraping off the top of the soil occasionally and putting on fresh earth repotting may be postponed for eight or ten years according to the kind of tree. "Dwarf maples from seed are ready for sale [346] in two or three years; seedling pines require from five to ten years to fit them for the market, and plums four or five years. Lately, however, it has become the custom to graft the plum, cutting back the tree until only a contorted old stump is left, and grafting upon this. We had two such trees at the Embassy, which were simply old stumps filled with plum blossoms, one cluster pink and the other white, diffusing their perfume all over the house. They were very beautiful with a plain gold screen for a background. "All kinds of evergreens, oaks and maples, the plum and some other flowering trees, bamboos and every sort of flowering shrub, and some vines, such as the wisteria and the morning-glory, are all used for dwarfing. Plants having thorns are never treated in this way, neither are they used in the decoration of shrines nor in real Japanese flower arrangement. For this reason the large, fine roses in which we take such delight, had never been cultivated in Japan until perhaps forty years ago, when the first one was brought from Holland, and the method of cultivation was also borrowed from the Dutch. "In gardens, these diminutive trees are carefully shaded from the rays of the afternoon sun, and special pains are taken to keep them [347] well watered. When the temperature is above ninety degrees, they are watered three times a day -- at eleven in the morning, and at two and five in the afternoon. If they are used as house plants, the care of them is a dignified occupation, in which even nobles and princes may engage in their own homes. As the use of ordinary fertilizers might be disagreeable to these exalted personages on account of their bad odour, a pleasant and economical way has been found of supplying the small quantity of nourishment needed from eggs. After an egg has been broken and the yolk and the white removed, the shell, with the small amount of albumen that adheres to it, is taken in the hand and the broken edge touched here and there to the soil of the pot, leaving on each spot a tiny drop of white of egg. This process, repeated from day to day, furnishes the little tree with all the nutriment it requires. Milk is also sometimes fed to these plants by the Japanese, who have discovered that it gives brighter colours to the flowers. "We visited a charming exposition of pigmy trees in Shiba [south of the Imperial Palace]. Many gentlemen of Tokyo had sent their tiny plants and miniature vases, hibachi, lacquers, books and jades to decorate the doll-house rooms. These playthings are in [348] many cases of great antiquity and value, and lovely in quality and colour; as much pains and taste are required to arrange these little expositions as to decorate the large rooms of a palace. On account of our visit the gardener had taken particular trouble, and he showed us all the fairy articles with loving hands and words. There were microscopic trees an inch high and landscapes two inches long, which were a real delight, so exquisite were they. Such trees are really works of art, and some of them indeed as valuable as gems. About us, in pots of beautiful form and colour, were the dwarf trees of fantastic shape - stunted plum in fragrant bloom, white and pink, and gnarled trees hundreds of years old with blossoming branches springing out of seemingly dead trunks. 2 |
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1
Anderson, Isabel
The Spell of Japan
(Boston: The Page Company, 1914), pp.
viii-ix.
Image from S9.com biography.
See also Bonsai Book of Days for April 13. |