128 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



Moreover, almost every article of furniture mats, 

 screens, chairs, tables, bedsteads, bedding, &c. are 

 all made of the same material. We shall presently 

 show how this same curious people convert bam- 

 boo into paper : in short, as Van Braam remarks, 

 " scarcely any thing is to be found in China, either 

 upon land or water, in the composition of which bam- 

 boo does not enter, or to the utility of which it does 

 not conduce*." The same extensive use of the hol- 

 low reed is made in Japan, nor is it much less 

 employed in Java, Sumatra, Siam, Pegu, the Ladrone 

 islands, and other eastern countries. 



In a preceding volume of this series it has been 

 shown how the Chinese extract an article of food 

 from the young shoots of the bamboo ; nor is this 

 practice, any more than that of making candle-wicks 

 from its fibres, confined to China : both obtain in 

 Japan and some other neighbouring countries. 



Although the bamboo grows spontaneously and 

 most profusely in nearly all the immense districts 

 included in the southern portion of their empire, the 

 Chinese do not entirely rely on the beneficence of 

 nature, but cultivate the gigantic reed with much 

 care. They have treatises and whole volumes devoted 

 solely to this subject, laying down rules derived from 

 experience, and showing the proper soils, the best 

 kinds of water, and the seasons for planting and 

 transplanting this useful production. 



* Account of an Embassy to China, vol. ii. 



