NORTH CAROLINA PINE
Of what shall the basket be made? Children enjoy those things most which they feel that they have exerted themselves to obtain; and the greater the effort involved, the greater the educational value. Every child should be trained to keep his eyes open and to adapt to his use the things he sees about him. Materials for baskets may be obtained in just this way. City children may take a trip to the country and gather the long grasses found in swamps and low places. Perhaps in the garden at home there is a clump of yucca; when the fall comes and the bloom is gone the leaves or blades may be cut, dried and stripped, and transformed into an attractive basket or tray. Again, the husks which are stripped from the corn cooked for dinner may be torn into narrow ribbons and dried for use. Corn husks make a beautiful basket, for the different shades of green change, after the husks have dried, to as many shades of brown, which blend most artistically when worked up. The little children of the South may gather the long needles that fall from the southern pine, and combine them with raffia or twine to construct a basket. Country children have a most adaptable and convenient commodity in the tough, flexible willows found on the banks of almost every stream.
The material most commonly used and easiest to begin with, however, is reed, which is pliable, and readily handled and moulded into simple forms by even small children. It is available when other materials are not to be had, for it may be purchased with the school supplies.
Reed is the core or central part of the climbing calamus, a species of palm found in the jungles of Borneo and adjacent South Sea islands. The outside of the raw calamus is smooth and is made into commercial cane used for chairs. The shavings, made by the machine which separates the cane from the core or inner reed, are utilized for mats, polishing material, and stuffing for mattresses and furniture. Thus every part of the raw material is brought into use.
Originally the calamus grew in a limited area and was difficult to obtain. Only the natives could gather it, as the white man contracted the jungle fever as soon as he subjected himself to the climate in which it grew. But within the last fifty or seventy-five years enterprising men have begun the cultivation of the rattan palm, and have met with so much success that now there are a number of factories in the United States making the reed and rattan of commerce, while Germany and Belgium export to us the best reed that is used.
REED BASKETS