IN THE ABERDARES 



quantity is made up by the larger number of culms 

 found to the acre. 



In many of the areas that I visited I felled experi- 

 mental plots to ascertain the number of culms to the 

 acre and estimate yield. Care was taken to select only 

 typical plots for the purpose of measurement and fell- 

 ing and in cases where a particularly good stand had 

 been chosen, another stand of inferior type was selected 

 to balance results, so that if the whole be totalled, it 

 should give a fair estimate of the yield over the main 

 area. During two months' safari, it is estimated that over 

 a thousand miles were traversed, while twenty thou- 

 sand culms were felled. My experience leads me to esti- 

 mate that the average number of serviceable culms to 

 the acre is about forty-five hundred with a maximum 

 number of seventy-five hundred, while the average use- 

 ful length of culms is about fifty feet with a girth 

 breast high of nine inches, or average diameter of two 

 feet five inches, maximum, four feet five inches. The 

 number of air dry culms to the ton is in the neighbour- 

 hood of one hundred and ten. My observations lead me 

 to believe that clear felling will improve the stand of 

 culms if not repeated too frequently. From three to five 

 years may be the most economic period for felling and 

 even at this it will be readily seen that the yield of pulp 

 from bamboo forests will be many times more than that 

 from a timber forest, which may have taken a hundred 

 and fifty years to mature. 



Laboratory experiment gave thirty-seven per cent 



233 



