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This greenhouse belongs to the suburban estate of the famous leader of the Progressive party in Japanese politics. His gardener here is skilful [[skillful]] in all the myriad methods which Japanese horticulturists practice; chrysanthemums raised here are among the most magnificent in Japan.

These dwarf trees are the special pride of the noble owner; it was long before he was born that some clever gardener began to train them; the maple is over eighty years old and the pine almost a generation older still. The process followed in thus checking the growth while retaining all the characteristics form and color consists largely in a judicious twisting of stems, pruning of roots, and pinching of buds in just the right manner and degree, at just the right season, and with just the right frequency. Almost any western gardener, trying to do the same thing, would promptly kill his little tree, and that would be the end of it. 

Artists with eyes trained to the appreciation of beauty perfectly understand the delight a Japanese feels over a tree like this tiny pine - the relations of all its lines and all its feathery foliage masses have been carefully studied - notice the irregularity of its shape, so suggestive of the charming bits of decoration with which Japanese artists perfect a fan, a tray, a jar or a lacquered box. The cruder sort of beauty which resides in our A-shaped symmetry, and which pleases western taste, does not greatly appeal to the Japanese. 

The Japanese love such dwarfed trees not only for their intrinsic beauty of form, but also partly because of their being so small. A favorite amusement here is the construction and the admiration of tiny landscapes in miniature, with artificial hills and ponds, tiny trees and tinkling threads of running water forming baby cascades among mossy rocks.

From Notes of Travel, No. 9, copyright, 1904 by Underwood & Underwood.

Dwarf pines and maples in Count Okuma's greenhouse. Tokyo, Japan.
Sapins nains et érables dans la serre du Comte Okuma, Tokyo, Japon.
Zwergfichten Ubornbäume in Graf Ofuma's Gewächshaus, Tofio, Japan.
Pinos enanos y meples en el conservatoria [[??]] de Okuma. Tokyo, Japón.
Dvärgträd i gretve Okumas drifhus. Tokio, Japan.
Малорслыя сосны и клены въ оранжереяхъ Графа Окума, токіо, томяпонія.

Transcription Notes:
all spot-checked, just can't make out the one word in Spanish translation