Bamboo

a genus of grasses. Fishing poles from the canebrakes of Kentucky are not genuine bamboos, but they are closely related to bamboos and give a good idea of them. There are 200 kinds of bamboos growing in tropical countries everywhere from Equador to the East Indies. The pygmy bamboo of Japan is only a hand's breadth high and forms a carpet underfoot. The bamboo of Quito reaches sixteen inches in diameter and a height of a hundred feet. Bamboos grow at the sea level and at an elevation of 12,000 feet up the sides of tropical mountains. Generally speaking, however, the common bamboo is the particular species cultivated in Japan, China, India, Siam, and the East Indian archipelago. Except that it is larger, it resembles our Kentucky cane very closely. The stems are slender. A five-inch cane rises to a height of fifty feet; a bamboo eighty feet high seldom exceeds a foot in diameter. The stem, like that of oats and all other grasses, is hollow, jointed, and hardened like flint on the outside. Bamboos grow with great rapidity, shooting up under favorable conditions from six to thirty inches a day. Delicate foliage springing from the joints give the upper part of the stem a plume-like appearance.

The uses to which an ingenious but not enlightened people can put bamboo are numerous and interesting. Bamboo stems form the framework of houses. Bamboo splints are woven into lattice work for outer walls and partitions. Split bamboo is used for floors, and the roof is made of bamboo leaves laid on bamboo poles. The joints of the stem are several feet in length and, being water-tight, serve a variety of domestic purposes. Joints from trees of large size cut to short lengths make pails, tubs, pans, and crocks. Smaller canes furnish cups, bottles, and jars. Babies are rocked in bamboo cradles and sleep on bamboo matting. The Chinaman uses a section of bamboo for a pillow and, during a scarcity of rice, eats a breakfast prepared from the seeds of the bamboo. Young shoots are used like asparagus and a fluid collecting at the bottom of the joints hardens into a valued medicine. Bamboos are used for masts of ships, for which several are sometimes lashed together. By boring out the partitions, long canes are used for water pipes for reservoirs and gardens. Bows are made by lashing two bamboo splints together, and slender shoots supply arrows. A joint of bamboo makes an excellent receptacle for papers. Silkworms were first smuggled out of China in a joint of bamboo. Oriental people make beautiful bamboo chairs, baskets, cages, and wicker work of many kinds. Paper is made from the inner wall of the cane, and the outer wall is so flinty that it may be whittled into reasonably serviceable knives. A vast amount of bamboo is imported into Europe for umbrella handles, walking sticks, split-bamboo fishing rods, basketry, and wicker work. While bamboo is not indispensable, in the sense that its place may not be filled by steel or some other form of iron, we may say that it is one of the most serviceable plants known and that it meets the present wants of the people in the most densely inhabited parts of the world.