13 
Part III.] Raitt : Bamboo as Material for Paper-pulp . 
full height and girth within a period of from two to four months. This 
enormous and rapid effort may result in growth equalling, in actual dry 
weight, one-fifth of that of the whole clump, and the normal activity of 
its root and leaf systems would be wholly inadequate to support this 
growth were these not aided by its power of storing up large reserves of 
plant food in anticipation, chiefly in its roots but also to a very consi¬ 
derable extent in its culms. From these reserves the young shoots draw 
the major portion of the material required for building up of their tissues. 
These reserves consist of starch in its solid and granular form. During 
the process of its transformation into woody tissue it breaks down, or 
metamorphoses, into several groups of secondary products (of which 
dextrose is a type), all of which are soluble in cold water and therefore 
capable of being readily assimilated by the plant. Both as starch and as 
secondary starchy matter, it at all times and seasons forms a consider¬ 
able constituent of bamboo and one not met with to any appreciable 
amount in other raw materials. But its special interest to us at the pre¬ 
sent stage of these proceedings is its liability to large variation at different 
seasons of the year. As the young culms make their appearance at about 
three to five weeks after the commencement of the south-west monsoon, 
we find the largest reserve stores existing then and find abundant proof 
that the first few weeks of the monsoon season, as also of the period of 
showery weather preceding it, are utilised to collect them ; and we also 
find, as we should expect, that they are at their lowest at six to eight 
weeks after the monsoon has ceased and when the young stems are fully 
grown. But should a period of forcing, i.e., showery weather, intervene 
during seasons which are usually dry, or if the district is visited by the 
short north-east monsoon, the habit of the plant asserts itself and storage 
takes place, resulting in the upsetting of the normal relative percentage 
of its constituents. I have found, for instance, in a bamboo cut during 
the height of the dry season a total water extract of 9 per cent, on the 
dry substance. A period of unusual and unseasonable showery weather, 
lasting for three weeks, then intervened. A culm cut from the same 
clump then yielded 23 per cent, with, of course, a relative reduction of the 
cellulose which was only 37 per cent. But it is important to note that 
this same culm, preserved in a dry atmosphere for five weeks yielded 
then only 15 per cent, of water extract, which three months later had 
fallen to 11 per cent, with corresponding rises in the relative percentage 
of cellulose. This can only mean that the starch is, in its secondary 
forms, capable of being oxidised by air and dispersed in the atmosphere, 
and that such oxidation is an integral part of the process of seasoning, and 
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