BAMBOOS FOR FARM AND HOME 735 alis)y cloud bent {A. nebulosa), hares- THE AUTHOR<«- Roland McKee tail {Lagurus ovatus), and the quak- is an agronomist in the Bureau of Plant ing grasses {Briza maxima^ B. minors Industry, Soils, and Agricultural E7igi- and B. media). neerinn. BAMBOOS FOR FARM AND HOME F. A. McCLURE THE BAMBOOS arc set off from the There have been many changes more familiar grasses by certain tech- since the carbon-filament lamp revo- nical characters, such as the woody lutionized illumination, but bamboo stems and the petiolate, or stalked, now promises to offer to the technical leaf blades. They comprise a highly world another fundamental raw ma- varied array of plants that range in terial, cellulose. That the bulk of size and habit from tiny dwarfs a few China's vast paper requirements has inches high to long and slender climb- been supplied, for hundreds of years, ers and giants a foot in diameter and by hand-dipped bamboo pulp is com- more than 100 feet tall. Among them mon knowledge. It may be news to are individual kinds with properties many, however, that paper is already that suit them, in aggregate, to a thou- being made by machine, on a commer- sand functions. Many of the uses, al- cial scale, from bamboo pulp in Trini- though of basic importance in the dad, Siam, Burma, India, and France, areas where industry remains largely as well as in China. The Forest Re- in the handicraft stage, are looked search Institute at Dehra Dun, India, upon in this mechanized world only publishes its annual reports on ma- as curiosities. Other uses have come chine-made bamboo paper, which closer to our everyday lives than most seems to me to be the equal of the best of us know. book paper made from wood pulp. The most successful of Thomas A. The promise of bamboo is great. Edison's early incandescent electric This is in terms of yearly per-acre pro- lamps had for its light-giving element duction of cellulose and of possible in- a carbonized filament of bamboo— crease of digester capacity. a slender, wirelike element made from Estimates based on carefully docu- a single fibro-vasular bundle from an mented records of the United States internode of a bamboo culm, or stem. Forest Service indicate that plantations Bamboo fibers were still used in car- of slash pine managed on a 35-year ro- bon-filament lamps for special pur- tation gavCj at a time when most of the poses as late as 1910. trees were under 20 years of age, an Apparently—we are not sure—Edi- average annual yield of 1.13 tons of son used fibers from a species of bam- oven-dry, sulphate, kraft pulp per acre. boo growing wild in the jungle at an Bamhusa vulgaris, on the other hand, elevation of about 5,000 feet on the according to records of the Trinidad slopes of Volcan Chiriquí, Panama. I Paper Pulp Co., Ltd., mentioned by the have collected botanical specimens general manager, C. T. B. Ezard, in an and fibers from this bamboo, which is interview, has produced more than 4 said by local witnesses to have been tons of pure, dry, cellulose pulp a year the source of some of Edison's experi- on a 3-year cutting cycle, at St. Augus- mental material. It is Chusquea pit- tine, Trinidad. On a 4-year cutting tieri Hackel, a plant that appears to cycle it produced up to 4.5 tons. the casual observer to be of little in- As for digester capacity, the capac- terest or technical promise. ity of a given digester, in terms of yield 73Ö YEARBOOK OF AGRICULTURE 19 4 8 per charge^ has been increased as much have been refining the methods and as 20 percent by using some species of perfecting the techniques of using bamboo instead of southern pine. This bamboo in the making of paper. Now increase, with the use of bamboo, is it is possible on a commercial basis to due to the greater density and better make any desired quality of paper from loading properties of bamboo chips. a large number of different bamboos. Only by actual experiment can we Among the principal remaining prob- find whether existing wild stands of lems are to find the best, most produc- bamboo will meet the ultimate need. tive, and most easily harvested bam- In any case, we cannot afíbrd to ig- boos and to mechanize the processes nore what has happened to our wild of cutting and preparing them for the stands of pulp-producing forest trees. mill. The great reservoirs of one species During the recent war, unseasoned, after another have been depleted to an home-grown, bamboo culms sold at alarming extent by the axe of the pulp- w^holesale for as much as 25 cents a wood gatherer, and it remains to be running foot. The acute shortage of seen whether scientific management of bamboos suitable for our strategic the remnants will succeed in raising needs, which developed soon after our the production of pulpwood to levels supply from the Far East was cut off, at which our skyrocketing consump- emphasized the importance of estab- tion of pulp can be supplied. lishing numerous plantings of superior The rapidly mounting requirements bamboos in the Western Hemisphere. of the rayon industry are now added to From these plantings, supplies ade- those of the paper industry. The com- quate for our needs might be drawn bined consumption of pulpwood by should a similar emergency arise. the paper and rayon industries of the Through its program of technical United States increased more than 60 collaboration with Latin American percent in the past decade, according countries, the Office of Foreign Agri- to statistics supplied by the Forest cultural Relations of the Department Service—from 10,349,000 cords in ol Agriculture is fostering the develop- 1937 to 17,816,000 cords in 1946. ment of such a reservoir of superior For the rayon industry, also, cer- bamboo material. tain bamboos have been found well As a part of the program of its suited by virtue of superior technical Tropical Forest Experiment Station at properties, including a high alpha- Rio Piedras, P. R., the Forest Service cellulose content. That the use of is conducting extensive experimental bamboo for cellulose is no lons^er in plantings of several species of bamboo. the experimental stage is suggested by Because of their excellent soil-binding the fact, as we find in Fibres, for properties and heavy mulch produc- March 1947, that a company has been tion, bamboo plantings are particu- organized in Travancore, India, for larly appropriate for trial on waste- the commercial production of rayon land too steep for cultivation. In the from bamboo. Such use of bamboo experiments at Rio Piedras, bamboos may well be extended as the demand are being tested as a possible crop for for rayon continues. Forest Resources such lands. of Chile, issued by the Forest Service, The Federal Agricultural Experi- reported that "World production of ment Station at Mayaguez, P. R., ex- rayon has been going up rapidly, from perimenting with bamboos introduced about 20 million pounds in 1912 to from abroad, has brought to light a almost 2,000 million pounds in 1938.'* great deal of basic information con- Building upon the fundamental re- cerning methods of propagation, sea- search carried out by William Raitt soning, utilization, protection against through many years of patient labor, the attacks of wood-eating insects, and our great paper research laboratories so on. BAMBOOS FOR FARM AND HOME 737 The Forest Products Laboratory at specific purposes. On the basis of our Madison, Wis., has carried out pre- present knowledge, certain species liminary studies on several species of from India of the genus Ochlandra, bamboo. The studies include tests of not yet introduced, appear to be better strength, gluing tests, and impregna- suited for the production of cellulose tion for the modification of the physi- pulp for paper and rayon than any- cal properties of the culms and for pro- thing now available in the Western tecting them against insects and fungi. Hemisphere. A large collection of living bamboos All the continents except Europe from abroad has been built up at the have bamboos in their native flora. It is Barbour Lathrop Plant Introduction estimated that the total number of dis- Garden, near Savannah, Ga., and at tinct kinds of bamboo that have been the Coconut Grove Garden, near Mi- described is between 600 and 700. ami, Fla., by the Department of Agri- These comprise about 60 genera. Nine culture through its Division of Plant genera, with about 200 species, have Exploration and Introduction. been described from the Western Hemisphere. Uses on the Farm Of these nine American genera, only one, ArundÍ7iaria, has been found out- Besides the commercial importance side this Hemisphere—in Asia and of products obtained from bamboo, its Africa. The known native bamboo use as a supplementary crop and source flora of the United States comprises of material for farm and home use is two species and several varieties of the interesting. The development of bam- genus Arundinaria. A. gigantea^ the boo for such uses has only just begun. Giant Southern Cane, occurs in south- Propagation material of bamboos ern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, of excellent technical properties is Oklahoma, and other States to the available in the United States. They south; the switch cane {A. te eta) is can be grown in a large part of the confined to the Atlantic and Gulf United States.