278 
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
as a profit-bearing crop upon the land, seems to me in the highest 
degree improbable ; our sun is not strong enough to ripen the 
wood for practical purposes, and moreover we labour under one 
notable disadvantage which must always be against our pro¬ 
ducing culms of any size; in their own home the hot season is 
identical with the rainy season, and it is this combination of 
heat and moisture which gives the plants their marvellous 
development; whereas in this country such warmth as is vouch¬ 
safed to us comes with the dry season. We entirely lack that 
steamy atmosphere which is the secret of tropical vegetation. 
If anywhere, it will be in Cornwall and in parts of Ireland, that 
a success may be scored, but even in the most favoured localities 
the experiment will be costly, and the result slow of attainment, 
as I shall show you presently. Besides, even if we could reach 
the highest conceivable success, there would not be the same 
demand for our canes as there is in China or Japan ; we should 
not put bamboos to a tithe of the uses which they serve in those 
countries. Who, in this climate, would care to live in a Bamboo 
hut ? What fisherman would put to sea in a Bamboo-rigged 
junk ? 
In some of our colonies the case is different. I spoke to you 
just now of the Bamboos which are being grown in Ceylon. In 
that island, where wood is much needed, so much of the primeval 
jungle having been cleared to make way first for coffee, then for 
cinchona, and lastly for tea, I have every faith that such valuable 
Bamboos as Phyllostachys mitis, P. nigra, and Arundinaria 
japonica (Metake) might be grown with great profit, displacing 
those inferior species which are now planted. In their East 
Indian possessions the Dutch are setting us a good example in 
this respect. Probably their long connection with Japan has 
made them sensible of the great economic value of the Chinese 
and Japanese Bamboos. A member of their Legation in Japan, 
Mr. Van de Polder, has made a digest of the native treatise on 
these plants, which has been officially published by the colonial 
museum at Haarlem ; and two years ago the director of that 
museum, who evidently takes the deepest interest in the subject, 
wrote to me for further information as to the scientific nomen¬ 
clature of species of which only the Japanese names were given. 
There must be many places in our possessions where the 
