BAMBOO — McCLURE 395 



many variants of the process have been patented in those countries 

 where paper is made on a large scale. At least one of the several 

 modern paper mills established in China under an earlier regime 

 used bamboo exclusively as a source of pulp, and it is claimed that 

 90 types and grades of paper were made, ranging all the way from 

 wrapping paper and tissues to bond and ledger. 



As a result of long and careful pioneering experiments by William 

 Baitt, and more recent studies by Indian technicians working at 

 Dehra Dun, India leads the Oriental countries in the volume of 

 bamboo pulp produced. Indian mills are now turning out bamboo 

 pulp at a rate approaching 250,000 tons per year, principally from 

 the culms of Dendrocalamus strictus. The major portion of this is 

 used for blending, to upgrade inferior pulp made from herbaceous 

 grasses and short-fibered hardwoods. In Thailand a modern mill 

 makes paper entirely from bamboo, but the total amount and the 

 identity of the species used have not been reported. Indonesia and 

 Burma both have plans on foot for building modern mills to convert 

 a part of their vast bamboo resources into paper. Pakistan has just 

 completed an ultramodern mill designed for an initial production 

 of 30,000 tons of bamboo pulp per year, principally from the culms of 

 Melocanna baccifera (pi. 2, fig. 1). Japan is producing paper by 

 modern methods on an experimental scale and plans for expanded 

 facilities are under way. The species of principal interest there is 

 Phyllostachys bambusoides. 



BAMBOO AS A TEXTILE 



A great many objects of common domestic and industrial use are 

 fashioned entirely or in part from woven bamboo. These have the 

 qualities of lightness and flexibility, and there is about them an artistic 

 appeal not to be found in any other equally cheap material. 



Bamboo has numerous characteristics that fit it especially for weav- 

 ing purposes : straight grain, ease of splitting, flexibility, toughness, 

 natural gloss, and lightness in proportion to volume, to mention the 

 more obvious ones. The individual textile units are long, thin, tan- 

 gential segments of the outer layer of the culm, with the epidermis 

 occupying the greatest possible dimension. As prepared for most pur- 

 poses, these units vary up to about 8 feet in length, from one-fourth 

 to three-eighths of an inch in width, and from one-sixteenth to three- 

 sixteenths of an inch in thickness. For certain types of basketry and 

 matting these may be much narrower or much wider. For very fine 

 matting the outermost layer is removed to make the strips perfectly 

 flat and to eliminate the unevenness occasioned by the nodal rings, 

 and the finished strips may be but one-sixteenth of an inch or less in 

 width, and exceedingly thin. For certain kinds of sawale (a type 



