Chapter V. Collecting Team of Tahei
and His Brother Fukuji
When Tahei Suzuki took his younger brother, Fukuji, to
Mt. Myouji for his first time, Fukuji thought he was dreaming. But there
they were, Shimpaku junipers as far as he could see. For the first few years,
he and his brother sent the trees they collected back to Shikoku and tried
to root them there. But because the trees were traumatized by the long transportation
period before they were transplanted, their success rate was very low.
Mt. Myouji around 1925.
Around 1912, realizing they had to do something to increase the survival
rate of their collected trees, Tahei moved to Shimizukura which is located
at the foot of Mt. Kurohime, and Fukuji moved to Kotaki, at the foot of
Mt. Myouji, so they could collect the Itoigawa Shimpaku and transplant them
locally. They invited Aikichi Ozaki from their native community
on Shikoku to assist them with shaping the trees after new roots had been
established. They also invited several other local people to aide them in
collecting the specimens. One young man named Kumeji Ito from Kotaki assisted
them from the very beginning and improved his skills dramatically.
Taihei's workshop.
During the Taisho era (1912-1926), because of the abundance of the Itoigawa Shimpaku, the Suzuki brothers were able to pick only the very best specimens. While there were many masterpiece bonsai that survived, there were also many that died. One of the reasons for this was that the Shimpaku junipers were located on the cliffs and their roots had grown deeply into the rock crevices. It was a lucky case when they could remove the rocks and salvage even a little amount of the roots, but in most cases the specimens were collected by tearing off only the trunks. Another problem was that the time of transplanting was often not the best. Since Shimpaku is a robust tree, even one piece of root can continue to live and grow. But if the trees are replanted during the dormant season of winter, they cannot cope with the change and are less likely to survive. In those days, hunting was done even during winter when there was snow in the mountains, and the trees were dug up and exposed to those harsh winter conditions.
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| Shimpaku biting into limestone. |
Also there was a problem with the soil used for transplanting and growing new roots. Tahei, for example, had obtained a large quantity of sand from Kiryu (a town close to Kanuma where akadama and kanuma bonsai soils are produced), but this sand has a little acidity. Because Itoigawa Shimpaku junipers grow naturally in a limestone soil, the trees had a difficult time adapting to their new soil. The Itoigawa Shimpaku was different from the Ishizuchi Shimpaku, which was found in the area of olivine rocks.
Having recognized that Shimpaku was profitable, even those who did not know much about plants went seeking them out in the mountains, and this was another reason why so many good specimens were lost. In some cases, junipers that looked less valuable were simply thrown away. "If Itoigawa Shimpaku had been discovered 30 years later," said Michio Kataoka, "the story may have been different." Many first-rate masterpieces disappeared mercilessly.
(In 1910, Tahei reportedly collected the famous Shimpaku later known as"Fudo," which was between 600 and 1,000 years old. In 1970, Fudo was sold by Kyuzo Murata to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and unfortunately died shortly after it arrived in the United States. See the article by Robert Baran at www.phoenixbonsai.com/KMurata.html.)