BAMBOO — McCLURE 407 



weak-stemmed plants. The sprinkling buckets are equipped with 

 bamboo spouts. Windbreaks are often used as a protection against 

 unseasonable blasts from the north, and, for certain delicate plants, 

 bamboo sun screens are sometimes erected. 



Within the household are found, in addition to the various articles 

 of furniture, bamboo brooms, rakes for gathering fuel, fire-blowing 

 tubes, laundry poles, chopsticks, serving trays, colanders, sieves, grat- 

 ers, etc. It is a common practice among the more primitive peoples of 

 the Orient to use sections of large bamboo culms as water buckets 

 and for storing oil and other liquids or for conveying them from place 

 to place. 



BAMBOO AS A FARM CROP IN THE ORIENT 



The rural culture of bamboo in the Far East varies in its nature all 

 the way from the intensive and detailed husbandry (pi. 9) charac- 

 teristic of Oriental agriculture and horticulture, in general, to a casual 

 treatment in which the plants are practically allowed to shift for 

 themselves after they have been set out. The bamboos grown as a 

 farm crop may be classified, roughly, into three groups : those grown 

 for their edible shoots alone, those grown for both shoots and mature 

 culms, and those grown for the mature culms only. 



There are two general types of cultural practice, corresponding to 

 the two types of rhizome growth. Bamboos of the clump type (those 

 that have sympodial or determinate rhizomes), such as species of 

 Bambusa, Dendrocalamus, Schisostachyum, and Lingnania, are cul- 

 tivated by preference on level land, since the shallow rhizomes of this 

 type of bamboo sometimes are at a certain disadvantage in hillside 

 culture. Even when grown on level land, many of these bamboos 

 thrive best when some fresh earth is thrown over the rhizomes each 

 year. In the culture of this type bamboo for shoots (Sinocalamus 

 beecheyanus and S. latiflorus), as carried on in southeastern China, 

 the earth is pulled away from the base of each clump every year in 

 December or January and the dead wood of old rhizomes is removed. 

 The earth is then heaped up afresh and the systematic application 

 of fertilizer, usually diluted urine, is begun (pi. 8). In addition to 

 protecting the rhizomes and roots from undue exposure and drying, 

 these heaps of earth serve to protect the young shoots from the light 

 until they are large enough to be harvested. This is important, for 

 the action of sunlight spoils their flavor. 



Bamboos of the spreading type (pi. 9) with slender, indeterminate 

 rhizomes, such as species of Arundinaria and Phyllostachys, are grown 

 on both level land and hillsides. Aside from the question of fertility, 

 which is usually higher in level land, hill land seems to be preferred 

 by bamboos of this type. This may be due in part to their abhorrence 

 of poor drainage. It may be, also, that the slope of the land affords 



451800—58 27 



