Bamboo in the Economy of Oriental Peoples 1 



By F. A. McClure 3 



Plant Introduction Section 



Agricultural Research Service 



United States Department of Agriculture 



[With 10 plates] 



Bamboo is fascinating alike to the artist, the poet, the craftsman, 

 and the scientist. The Western traveler in the Far East has never 

 failed to be intrigued by the ubiquity of bamboo and by the number 

 of ways in which it enters into diverse phases of the life of the people. 

 He has been struck by its beauty as an ornamental and by its aston- 

 ishingly varied role in the arts and industries. He has listed its mul- 

 titudinous uses, praised its virtues, and advocated its incorporation 

 into Western agricultural and industrial economy. 



BAMBOO AS A GARDEN ORNAMENTAL 



Bamboo is an essential feature of many planned landscapes in the 

 Orient: the elaborate and extensive gardens characteristic of the 

 Golden Era of China, the more restricted type peculiar to Japan to- 

 day, the relatively tiny secluded inner court of inn, teahouse, or pri- 

 vate dwelling where there may be room for little more than a bamboo 

 screen (pi. 1, fig. 1). In Oriental gardens we find living bamboos 

 used as hedges, borders, and screens, in mass plantings, in groves, and 

 in isolated clumps. Dwarf forms are often used, in Japan at least, 

 as ground cover for open parklike areas, and especially under pine 

 trees. 



Some bamboos are suited to a great variety of treatment, while 

 others are less responsive to the skill of the gardener. The most 

 tractable are the ones commonly employed in pot culture. Several 

 types of manipulation are practiced to produce either dwarfed speci- 



1 Reprinted by permission from Economic Botany, vol. 10, No. 4, October- 

 December 1956. 



* Present address : Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution, Washington 

 25, D. C, care of Department of Botany. 



451800—58 26 391 



