Taper is the result of growth over time. "Time" being the operative word. If you substitute any other word for taper, like wealth, knowledge, wisdom, skill, ad infinitum desirables, and ask for a quick way to skip over what the normal process is for everybody else, the snake oil salesmen will appear as if by magic. We old guys have all the big trees we want so it may be cheap for us to tell young whippersnappers to be patient, but we have been there and done that, wrong, so we know that the best way just happens to be the patient way. Yes, by all means collect, beg, buy, borrow or steal stock of all sizes and use all methods you can to build an inventory of trees, but also notice along the way that a lot of defects are built into trees that have been rushed to completion making it necessary to spend more time on correcting/hiding those short-comings. The very best trees of all species are those started by seed by bonsaiists for themselves, not withstanding special collected trees. "Special" being the operative word here. Lots of collected trees are deficient, ugly, unremarkable, or all three. Club auctions are good sources for buying larger, older trees that have become unwanted by someone for whatever reason. I know that I have sold trees that I couldn't do anything productive with because my mindset at the time was the tree couldn't evolve to what I originally wanted and I wanted out. In a few cases it was a mistake. I also have bought some trees that were owned by someone who let them go without proper training after they had peaked. From this in 2015...
Branches much too long and all the foliage at the ends. Nobody wanted it more than me for $65.
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Put the branches into better locations with long term (2 years) God-awful wiring inside vinyl tubing.
Six years later back into the form that someone else had it one or two or more owners ago. Time spent in a good process gives good results. The same amount or more time spent on damaged goods or poor prospects is wasted. The accounting can begin at day one or at the end of the process. If you look at the prospects with a properly jaundiced eye in the beginning you can avoid spending a lot of time on something that amounts to nothing. In other words: don't assess just the good points of potential stock. Look critically at all the bad points and make a guess, -a hard number, an amount of time and expertise it will take to fix all the bad points, -which are more important than the good points, before you collect, beg, borrow, buy or steal potential stock.
