ON l'Hli LCOXOMIC USES OF BAMBOOS. 



279 



authorities might with advantage take a leaf out of the 

 Dutchmen's book. 



I have not been able to obtain much information as regards 

 the cost of planting bamboos in their own country for commercial 

 purposes, nor as to the profits to be obtained. Of course there 

 must in any case be a number of years, varying, according to 

 Chinese authorities, from seven to ten, before the plants come to 

 maturity, but once they have attained a size at which their canes 

 may be cut for sale, the crop must bring in a goodly revenue. 

 We are told that in the village of Lower Uchimamura, near 

 Tokio, an enterprising individual has planted a plot of land of 

 about two acres in extent, having a sandy, stony soil, so poor 

 that hardly anything would grow on it, with the black bamboo, 

 Phyllostachys nigra, with the result that he sells every year 

 five hundred dollars' worth of walking sticks and umbrella 

 canes.* 



That the industry is a paying one is proved by the great care 

 with which the best species are cultivated both in China and 

 Japan. No people make more of their land than the Chinese 

 and Japanese, and they would not waste thousands of acres upon 

 an unprofitable crop. 



I am not aware that any very extensive plantations of bamboos, 

 as a commercial speculation, have been attempted in Europe. 

 But my information is lamentably far off from being up to date. 

 The newest source at my disposal is twenty years old, being a 

 " Note on the Cultivation of the Bamboo and its Industrial Uses," 

 by M. A. Calvet, published by the French Department of Agri- 

 culture and Trade, in 1878. 



He says, "The introduction of the bamboo into the South- West 

 (of France) is due to M. Guillemin, the owner and director of the 

 farming school at Tolou, near (lau, in the Lower Pyrenees; it 

 dates from the year 1861. The first plants came from the garden 

 of the Hamma, at Algiers. 



" Since then, M. Garrigues, the assistant director of the 

 farm, has extended the cultivation of the bamboo in the valley 

 of the Neez, at the mouth of the valley of Ossau, with the 

 greatest success. 



" An area of four hectares, on a slope at a height of 350 



* Van de Polder. 



