592 FIELD AND GARDEN PRODUCTS 



parts of the South. The discovery by means of various importa- 

 tions that this useful plant can be grown along the Gulf States and 

 in California has induced the Bureau to engage an expert in Japan, 

 who has made purchases of several thousand bamboo plants, which 

 he has now shipped to this country. These form the nuclei of small 

 plantations established in the Southwest, where the climate is suited 

 for the crop. If it is found that the bamboo may be successfully 

 grown on these plantations its cultivation will be extended, with a 

 view to getting the wood introduced into various channels of trade 

 here. (Y. B. 1908.) 



Ten acres of Japanese timber bamboo are now growing at 

 Brooksville, Fla., as a result of the introduction of more than 3,000 

 young plants from Japan, -while a similar but smaller area is located 

 at Avery Island, La. This is the first serious attempt in this coun- 

 try to test on a commercial scale the culture of a plant which in the 

 Orient forms one of the best paying crops. (Y. B. 1910.) 



It is, of course, generally known that a native variety of bam- 

 boo called cane is found forming the so-called canebreaks in Mis- 

 sissippi, Louisiana and in other parts of the southeastern States. 

 That variety does, however, not grow any larger than the fishing 

 poles on sale anywhere. 



Rosette.* Fruits and economic plants indigenous to the Tropics 

 are now as never before attracting the attention of the people of the 

 United States. Some, such as the avocado and the guava, are natives 

 of the Westehi Hemisphere; others, like the roselle, are introduc- 

 tions from the Old World. A strictly tropical plant, the roselle is 

 very sensitive to frosts. This, together with its peculiar habit of 

 blooming late in October regardless of the time when the seed is 

 planted, has restricted the cultivation of the roselle to tropical and 

 subtropical regions. Its distribution, for this reason, has not been 

 so general nor has the plant become so widely known as intro- 

 duced plants indigenous to the Temperate Zone. Introduced sev- 

 eral years ago into California and Florida, the roselle deserves a 

 wider cultivation than it now enjoys and should prove a valuable 

 acquisition to the tropical islands of the United States and to the 

 Canal Zone. The cultivation of the roselle is so simple and its re- 

 quirements so few that in the Tropics and Subtropics it should be 

 an indispensable plant in the garden of every family, and on ac- 

 count of its excellent qualities for making jellies, jams, etc., it is 

 certain to become an important plant in the manufacture of those 

 products. The young stems also make good jelly. For such use 

 the plant can be grown almost anywhere in the North or South. 

 By proper methods of breeding it is possible to obtain strains with 

 larger calyces. Probably earlier bearing races can also be obtained 

 by careful selection of the earliest flowering plants. The roselle 

 is subject to only one disease, a mildew which does considerable 

 damage to the plant, while the soft scale, the cotton stainer and 

 yellow aphis attack the plant, but remedies against all of these 

 eeem to be easily obtained. (F. B. 307.) 



Rubber. The whole tropical world is entering into the culti- 



* For illustration, see page 159. 



