230 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



In India, Bambusa Brandisii^ Munro, sometimes grows from 30 

 to 36 m. high, and in warmer China, B. arimdinacece and B. 

 "(Vulgaris reach a circumference of from 28 to 30 English inches 

 (70 to 75 cm.), and a height of more than 20 m., dimensions which 

 are considerably exceeded by the best canes of Japan. 



The tree-like bamboo finds a use in every size, at all ages, in great 

 quantities and for manifold purposes. First of all, the full-grown 

 stalks, gigantic wood stems, which nature has endowed with many 

 valuable properties such as no other wood possesses in like measure, 

 have a wide range of applications and in numberless directions. 

 No other wood contains so much firmness, elasticity and strength. 

 The large quantity of free silicic acid in the cane makes it hard 

 and able to resist many influences which destroy other wood. In 

 burning it crackles and fulminates, as was noted by Marco Polo, 

 who also mentions that wild animals in this way are kept at night 

 from the camp fires and the fruits of the field. Its slenderness 

 and length, its pipe form, its nodal interruptions and its easy 

 lengthwise cleavage, are among its most valuable properties. 

 Every attempt to number the manifold uses based upon these 

 properties seems vain, for, sleeping or waking, in every form of 

 activity and at every age, man is surrounded by its forms and 

 accustomed to its uses wherever the bamboo grows in Southern 

 and Eastern Asia. 



In its natural condition, and stripped only of its crown, it is 

 used for ladder beams, rafters, palings, posts, and stakes for pro- 

 tection and support, for example, of young trees ; for scaffoldings ; 

 for rudder-posts, masts, flag-staffs, fishing-rods, and measuring 

 sticks ; for walking-sticks, handles and other parts of implements 

 and weapons ; for hedges, fences and all sorts of framework. Its 

 hollowness makes it applicable in many directions, e.g., as water 

 pipes when the partitions at the joints have been pierced through, 

 and for pumps, flutes, and whistles. 



Every section with these cross walls at the joints is a closed 

 vessel. If cut crosswise it affords a piece of pipe which, with 

 its closed end and open top, forms a cylindrical vessel that may 

 serve under different circumstances as a pail or cup, flower vase 

 or spittoon. 



Its easy cleavage allows of its use in small staves, splints and 

 bands of various size, also chopsticks, spoons, spears, and other 

 simple articles, as well as in many kinds of lattice work and 

 plaiting, as hats, sieves, baskets, boxes and cages, chairs, litters 

 and bedsteads, mats and covers, blinds for doors and windows, 

 sails, picture-frames, screens and fans. 



In Tokio there are whole streets iv^here there is scarcely anything 

 but bamboo sold. Here, exposed for sale in the courts of the 

 larger shops are thousands of stalks of every length and thickness, 

 from rafters and ladder beams to paint-brush handles, ready to 

 make up into the before mentioned Take-mono (bamboo work). 



