Nature and Art, October 1, I860.] 
THE BAMBOO CANE. 
147 
cultivator, who culls, assorts, ami selects the par- 
ticular plants he considers best adapted to the 
special uses for which they are ultimately intended ; 
those destined to ornament the garden and the 
pleasure-ground being turned into graceful curves, 
over sticks bent for the purpose ; others, such as 
are used for fishing-rods, or the slender flag-poles 
of the temples, are allowed to shoot up straight 
to their full altitude, all the other sprouts from the 
roots being cut oft’. A very curious method is 
adopted when a cane of unusual size and height is 
required for any very special purpose. 
After careful search and due investigation, a root 
of the most vigorous description is selected by a 
whole conclave of knife-bearing cane-growers, who 
usually have a great deal to say on the subject. 
This, after being carefully dug up, is planted again 
in a pit prepared for it, in the most favourable 
position to be found on the plantation. The shoot 
is now cut off about five or six inches from the 
ground, leaving a hollow tube projecting, and into 
this hollow of the cane is rammed a mixture of 
stable litter and pounded sulphur, until it is quite 
full. For three years, every sprout appearing above 
the surface is scrupulously cut off. The most 
vigorous and best- shaped shoot of the fourth year is 
alone allowed to stand, which in due time becomes 
a sort of Goliah amongst canes. Those which turn 
out either crooked or unsightly, thereby rendering 
them unfit for the purpose originally intended, are 
immediately applied to another, such as fencing in 
the plantation, making bridges across the drainage- 
ditches, props for other canes, splitting, &c. 
Nothing is wasted. The young sprouts which 
are cut off as superfluous, are carefully preserved, 
and served up at table like asparagus, to which 
vegetable they are quite equal, if not superior, with 
the advantage of being in season all the year round. 
A little loose earth heaped up around the main 
root keeps the sprouts blanched and succulent. 
Prepared with salt, they are excellent as an ac- 
companiment to rice ; boiled in syrup, they form 
an important element in many of the best Eastern 
preserves and sweetmeats ; and with vinegar and 
capsicum pods, a pickle of exceeding excellence is 
made from them. Many of the large hollow stems 
contain a very considerable quantity of cool, palat- 
able fluid, the presence of which is ascertained by 
the experienced, by shaking the cane in a sharp, 
peculiar manner, when the sound emitted by the 
imprisoned fluid discloses its whereabouts, and the 
cane is tapped for its obtainment. This juice is 
not only an agreeable and refreshing drink, but is 
said by the natives to be particularly wholesome. 
It is somewhat curious that the siliceous element 
found covering the outside of the cane, like a 
varnish, should be held in solution by this fluid. 
But that it is so there can be no doubt, as when 
the liquid or sap is allowed to remain for any length 
of time in the tubular cavity of the cane, it either 
becomes absorbed altogether, or leaves a hard 
concrete substance, far more like a mineral than a 
vegetable production. Possessing, in fact, all the 
attributes of an earth product, it is not acted on by 
any of the ordinary acids ; it remains unaltered by 
fire; and forms with the alkalies a clear glass, just as 
flint would. This is the celebrated “ Tabascheer ,” so 
renowned throughout the East for its marvellously 
curative properities ; and it is not improbable that 
this, like many other Oriental productions, may 
contain virtues little dreamed of by the medical 
practitioner at home. 
A decoction of bamboo-leaves is esteemed a 
specific in all catarrhal affections. A highly prized 
salve is made from the root, mixed with tobacco- 
leaves, betel-nut, and oil. The outside rind is ex- 
tensively used in cases of a febrile tendency, and an 
infusion of the young buds is frequently made use 
of as a cooling drink. So much for it in a medicinal 
point of view. 
“ Blessings on the bamboo,” say the Hindoos. 
It makes you well if you are ill, and is very nice 
food into the bargain. There is a sort of forest 
dainty which the Hindoos are particularly fond of, 
and this is its mode of preparation : Young bamboo 
sprouts, fresh and crisp, are gathered, cut into small 
pieces, and placed with an equal proportion of 
honey, plundered from some colony of wild bees, in 
a bamboo joint of goodly size. This luscious com- 
pound is then tightly pressed home ; a coating of 
rough, tenacious clay is moulded over all. The 
mass is then roasted slowly and carefully over a 
clear wood fire, until the splitting clay and browning 
cane show the experienced and watchful cook that 
the roast is done to a turn. "When served on a 
freshly-gathered plantain-leaf, it is a delicacy not 
to be despised or thought lightly of. 
By the Chinese the seeds of the bamboo are 
used extensively as an article of food, and during 
periods of scarcity whole districts are mainly de- 
pendent on them for their daily support. Chinese 
historians and poets have extolled the innumerable 
uses and virtues of the bamboo, using it as a type 
of all that is good and graceful. 
Water-wheels are entirely made from it. Water- 
pipes, miles in length, are formed by uniting the 
larger joints end to end. Buckets, cups, boxes, 
agricultural implements, weapons of war, and even 
boats and ships of very considerable tonnage are 
constructed from this material" alone, the hull, 
masts, yards, sails, and even many of the ropes 
being made of bamboo, either whole, split, or 
twisted ; some of the most powerful bows we have 
ever seen were in the possession of the Bheels of 
Candish, which with their strings and the arrow- 
shafts, Avere composed of bamboo only. Through- 
out the East bamboo pens are preferred by the 
“ learned Pundits ” for transcribing their volumi- 
nous writings. 
The pellet bovj, too, with which the Indian sends 
his ball of sun-baked clay with such wondrous 
precision, is formed from a split bamboo. Houses 
are built, roofed, and floored with it ; whilst the 
ingeniously constructed mats which serve as blinds 
to the windows, admitting light and air, yet ex- 
cluding the ardent rays of a mid-day sun, are made 
of split cane. Baskets, brushes, brooms, and the 
shoulder-poles for carrying burdens are of cane, as 
