Bamboo Tree.
Writing from China, a correspondent says that the Chinese have developed the culture of the bamboo tree very wonderfully. They can produce a perfectly black as well as a yellow bamboo. The Emperor of China has one officer whose duty is to look after his bamboo gardens. This valuable tree is found in all tropical and sub‐tropical regions, both in the eastern and western hemispheres. An attempt has been made in England, and with some success, to raise a dwarf species found at an altitude of 12,000 feet in the Himalaya mountains. The new world furnishes bamboo of the greatest diameter. The stems are usually very slender, but in the northwestern part of South America is found one species with a diameter of 16 inches. The Chinese put this plant to a greater variety of uses than any other people. Some kinds of it when it first shoots up from the ground are used as a vegetable as we use asparagus, or it can be pickled in vinegar or made into delicious sweetmeats. The plant has to be 30 years old to blossom, and then it bears a great profusion of seeds and dyes. These seeds may be used like rice, and a kind of beer may be made from them. In 1812 severe famine in portions of China was prevented by the sudden blossoming of a great number of bamboo trees. The stems of all the varieties are remarkably silicious. One kind found in Java is so hard that it strikes fire when the hatchet is applied to it. This has only a very slender stem, which is polished and used as stems for tobacco pipes. This Protean tree furnishes material for houses, boats, cordage, sails of boats, telescopes, aqueduct pipes, water‐proof thatching, clothing, water wheels, fences, chairs, tables, book cases, boxes, hats, umbrellas, shields, spears, and paper. The pith is used for lamp wicks, so there is no part of it that cannot be used for something. From some of it exquisite carvings inlaid with gold and silver are cut, that exceed in beauty the ivory carvings for which the Chinese are so famed. Recently it has been put to another use. Mr. Edison has found that the carbonized fibers of the bamboo furnish the best material for the incandescent electric lamp, and has made use of it in his system of lighting. In Burmah and Siam whole cities are built from bamboo. These houses are made in pieces, lashed together, and raised on posts several feet high.—The Lumber World.