AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 229 



the large varieties) in respect to its varied use. None other graces 

 the landscape with equal charm. 



In their early growth the bamboo varieties furnish a favourite 

 food ; in fuller development their decorative groups are most 

 effective in the landscape of the country, and finally when dead 

 they yield a material which in the warm monsoon districts is so 

 manifold in its uses that an intelligent companion of Col. Yule ^ 

 could not conceive of the possibility of human existence in a 

 country destitute of bamboo cane. 



As the houses in North Germany are decorated at Whitsuntide 

 with the lovely green of young branches of birch, so in Japan the 

 bamboo is used for the New Year's festival. Behind the fir tree on 

 each side of the entrance door, is placed a tall slender stalk of Take- 

 no-ki with its many knots and articulations, a symbol of man's 

 strength, and its branches decked out with small mandarin 

 oranges, according to old custom. 



These great bamboo canes have often been aptly compared with 

 asparagus. As every spring a number of stalks are driven up 

 from the asparagus root, and under normal conditions attain a 

 regular growth each year, so it is with the well ordered cultiva- 

 tion of the bamboo. Only here the circumstances are on a much 

 grander scale. Out of a few clumps of bamboo roots on good soil 

 is developed an entire grove. In early spring the fresh growth 

 looks much like gigantic asparagus, and like it is used as a veget- 

 able. By the ist of May the canes of Bainhisa aritndinacea have 

 reached the height of a man, but it is not till Midsummer that 

 nature shows her full power in the bamboo thicket, for the cane is 

 indeed grass, which one can see grow, in the literal sense of the 

 word, and under certain conditions, at the rate of ten or more 

 meters a week. Without branches or leaves, it forces its way easily 

 through the thickets of other canes, and after reaching almost its 

 full height, -pushes out its thin branches through the nodes in all 

 directions, forming of them and their light green foliage the web of 

 its crowns which are already outlined. It is necessary of course 

 to provide a bamboo plantation with plenty of light and air. The 

 older canes which have been sawed off or hewn down are taken 

 away and used, and young plants take their place. The larger 

 cultivated varieties of bamboo in Japan, are not, as in India, set 

 apart in forests by themselves, but, as has been previously intimated, 

 are planted on the edges of forests, near large towns, and in temple 

 groves. Experience has taught that most varieties, even in their 

 Indian home, when they grow in groves of more or less density, 

 sometimes from 20 to 30 m. high, only over-topped by the highest 

 trees, or planted near villages, are very slow in reaching their 

 blossoming and seed time, when they die. In Japan, the large 

 cultivated kinds never blossom, nor do they here attain the same 

 height and thickness as in their tropical home, 

 i Yule, " Marco Polo," i. 298. 



