At what point do people stop thinking of their cuttings as cuttings and start thinking of them as trees?  Is it a size thing?  Is it an age thing?  Is it a "potting up" thing?  Are there any official definitions or rules of thumb?
Jim

A tree has different stages of growth.
A tree is a living plant. When you realized that your cutting has roots and you see the shoots growing due to nutrients fed by roots (and not due to nutrient reserves in the cutting) that is the time you can technically call it a little tree even though you can't climb it yet.

Good question. 

I haven't given it much thought, but after thinking about it, I would say a rooted cutting becomes a "tree" when it is at that point when you no longer have to treat the rooted-cutting as a cutting.  More specifically, newly rooted-cuttings are given special considerations, when stored for the Winter, they are usually prevented from forming figs for the first year, at least, they are given special places in the garden where they can grow in a more sheltered location, they may get special fertilizers, etc.  Rooted cuttings usually, but not always, need some guidance and extra nurturing to get them to establish, and then grow into a tree.  The first couple of years in the life of a rooted-cutting is usually spent growing a strong root system, stems, and branching structure, and not figs.

"Trees" are usually a little older, have well established root systems, usually have a few branches, and can put out figs without weakening the plant.  They just are not as tender as a rooted cutting, and can survive through some stress without harmful set-backs.

That's my take on the differences, which may be expanded upon by others with differing criteria.

Hope this helps.


Frank



EDIT : 
There is a quick way to getting an almost "instant" tree, and to by-pass a few years of waiting for the rooted-cuttings to develop into "trees"...it's done by air layering a large, fruiting-age branch off an established tree.  If you choose a thick branch, approx 1" - 2" diameter, which already has branches of its own, all you need do is plant it and grow it on after it is separated from the donor tree.  Voila...instant tree!  It will have a good root system, and the potential for getting figs all within the same year, depending on when you start the air-layering process.

F

I would start calling a cutting a actual tree when metabolic functions are active within the plant system. This being said the cutting wil have extended a proper root system and developed leafs on which to conduct photosynthesis. 

This reminded me of that seinfeld episode where kramer and poppy are arguing over when a pizza pie becomes a pizza pie.

OK, so there's one school of thought that a cutting becomes a tree (albeit an immature one) when it has roots and leaves and is self-sustaining.  Then there's another school of thought that doesn't consider it a tree until it is much more mature..i.e. finished being coddled and ready to be fruit-bearing.  I guess that's a pretty wide range of ages...just a few months from one point of view and possibly years from the other point of view.

What got me thinking about this is that I have an identification/labeling system with cultivar names and ID Numbers starting with T for trees and C for cuttings, where trees are unique but where multiple cuttings started under similar conditions/times will have common ID numbers.  Eventually, assuming the cuttings survive, they'd get their own "T" ID numbers.  I'm just trying to figure out when a good time to make that transition would be.  Doing it too early means lots more bookkeeping. 

Maybe if they survive the first winter/dormancy they deserve to get promoted to be called trees...
Jim