THE BARBOUR LATHROP 



BAMBOO GROVE 



DA\aD Fairchild 



WHILE traveling in search of 

 plants in Japan in 1902, Mr. 

 Barbour Lathrop and I became 

 interested in the possibilities 

 of the cultivation of the Japanese 

 bamboo in America. Acting under the 

 stimulus of his enthusiasm, I wrote a 

 bulletin on the subject for the Office of 

 Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction.^ 

 Seventeen years have passed since then, 

 bringing added experience to us in 

 regard to this subject — experience which 

 has resulted in the firmest conviction 

 that from the Carolinas to the Gulf, 

 wherever the soil conditions will permit, 

 groves of the Japanese bamboo can be 

 grown that will be as large and as 

 beautiful as any in Japan. 



We are now growing in this country 

 both the timber and the edible bamboo, 

 with stems as tall and with plumes of 

 foliage as feathery as anything to be 

 seen in Japan or China, and there is 

 no reason why, at thousands of places, 

 we should not start small groves of 

 this plant which the Orientals have for 

 thousands of years considered the most 

 useful plant in the world. 



It is a strange thing to consider that 

 on one side of the Pacific there are 

 civilizations comprising hundreds of 

 millions of people who are so dependent 

 upon the bamboo that they simply 

 cannot imagine an existence without it, 

 whereas, on the other shore, a hundred 

 million people live whose main contact 

 with the plant is through its use as a 

 fishing pole. 



Now that the experiments begun by 

 the Government in 1902 and the many 

 individual trials of the plant, which were 

 begun earlier, have shown how easily 

 the bamboo can be grown, the task is 



before us of instructing the American 

 farmer in the uses and value of this 

 remarkable plant. In order to do this, 

 material in considerable quantities will 

 be required, and it is a most fortunate 

 circumstance that at this critical point 

 in the development of the industry in 

 this country. Mr. Lathrop, who ^ has 

 fathered its introduction, should not 

 only save from probable destruction the 

 most remarkable grove of bamboo in 

 eastern North America, but that he 

 should place it in the custody of the 

 Department of Agriculture for ninety- 

 nine years, in order that the timber 

 which it produces and the thousands of 

 young plants which can be taken from 

 it may be placed by the Government 

 in the hands of the manufacturers on 

 the one hand and the farmers on the 

 other to experiment with. 



The grove which Mr. Lathrop has 

 recently acquired is located on the 

 Ogeechee Road, 14 miles from Savannah, 

 Georgia. The Dixie Highway passes 

 by it on that stretch which connects 

 Savannah and Brunswick, and every 

 lover of plants would find that the 

 experience of a few minutes in this 

 unique grove rivals any of the other 

 new experiences of a motor trip through 

 the south, for a bamboo grove is 

 strangely different — unusually so — from 

 any other growth of trees in the world. 



The dense, deciduous tropical forests 

 of Java and Sumatra, the evergreen 

 fir and spruce forests of Canada, the 

 eucalyptus-covered plains of Australia, 

 the rainy region jungles of Brazil, the 

 date palm groves of Egypt, or the fern 

 tree forests of Hawaii are all dififerent 

 from each other, but they have this in 

 common — the trees have trunks, and 



1 Fairchild, David G., Japanese Bamboos and Their Introduction into America. 

 43, Bureau of Plant Industry, Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, 1903. 



243 



Bui. 



