Bamboo.—

The possibility of utilising profitably the young stems of bamboo as a paper material is still attracting—mainly owing to the untiring enthusiasm of the well known paper-maker Mr. Routledge—a good deal of attention both in the East and West Indies. The excellence of the paper which can be made from it is not contested, and I am informed that there are some especial technical merits about bamboo paper-stock which in the eyes of the manufacturer make it particularly desirable. There is no reason to suppose that these are peculiar to the particular species of bamboo, Bambusa vulgaris, which, originally a native of Tropical Asia, is now widely cultivated throughout the tropics of both hemispheres. They are, no doubt, shared, more or less, by all the members of this family of arborescent grasses, which are far more numerous and distinct than is generally supposed by those who are not botanists. The species of Guadua in Tropical America are therefore quite as suitable for Mr. Routledge's experiments as the species of Bambusa and Dendrocalamus of the East Indies.

The point which at present has to be settled is whether bamboo forests and plantations can be so managed as to yield year by year a regular supply of young stems suitable for the paper-maker's purpose. The further question then arises whether this can be done at an expense which will leave the manufacturer a working profit. The importance of the first point has already been pointed out in former reports, and has been clearly insisted upon by Dr. Brandis in his instructions to the Indian Forest Department:—"A method of treatment must, if possible, be discovered by which a plantation or natural forest of bamboos may be made to yield a succession of complete crops of young shoots throughout the year. Our present experience is that a large proportion of old stems is required in a bamboo clump to produce full-sized shoots. . . . Under ordinary circumstances, if bamboo clumps are cut over in the forest, all mature stems being cut down at one time, the result is a crop of slender stems." Dr. King has stated the same fact in his report on the Calcutta Gardens, published last year (July 10, 1878): "It is pretty well known that bamboo clumps, if entirely cut down, yield for several years but few and small succulent shoots, and, in fact, not unfrequently die."

In British Burma the stems of bamboo are applied to an immense number of useful purposes, and the practice of obtaining a supply of stems without destroying the clumps appears to be well understood. Dr. Ribbentrop, the Conservator of page 43 Forests, reports:—"The bamboo jungles near villages on the Pegu choung prove that constant cutting does not materially affect the reproduction, and cutting them down within a couple of feet from the ground maintains a perfectly unimpaired action of the roots, as may be observed on the bamboo hedges in Rangoon. At the same time, a bamboo plantation cannot be kept indefinitely without restocking. This has been the case with the artificial plantations of Dendrocalamus Brandisii in Burma, the original stocks of which die after about 60 or 70 years; others would be doubtless shorter lived. The Dendrocalamus Brandisii plantations in Burma are kept up by interplanting with new stocks."

The Rev. C. Parish, the well known botanist, who has long resided in Burma, is of opinion that when the bamboo is well estabisbed it may be cut annually. "The shoots should not all be cut every year, for if this were done the root-stock would die; only about half the clump should be cut yearly."

If a regular supply of, the stems suitable for paper making can be organised, there seems no reason to doubt there being a more than abundant area of supply. Dr. Brandis states:—"It will interest you to learn that there are about 1,800 square miles of almost pure bamboo forest in the Arrakan division of British Burma, within a moderate distance from the coast, and all accessible by navigable streams." The latter is a point of great importance, as the carriage of the bamboo stems is one of the practical difficulties in utilising the material. Mr. Routledge points out that to compete with other materials, it cannot, on account of its bulky nature "possibly be imported from the tropics in its raw or natural condition, or even if crushed and dried. It must be made into stock—a fibrous or tow-like condition, which will enable it to be baled up under hydraulic pressure, occupying no more space than cotton or jute, and thus delivered to the paper maker ready for bleaching and converting into paper."

It of course remains to be seen if this can be done at a remunerative cost. Dr. Schlich, the Conservator of Forests in Bengal, is decidedly of opinion that it cannot. He states:—"Experiments recently made in the Central Provinces, where labour is cheap, prove that it will cost twice as much to produce the paper-stock than paper manufacturers are willing to pay for it, and this, irrespective of the original price of the bamboos."

Mr. Thomson, the late superintendent of the Cinchona plantations in Jamaica, is very sanguine as to the success of the project in the West Indies. He wrote to me August 23rd of last year:—"Some two thousand tons of bamboo were cut and shipped to America from a limited area (within a few miles) four years ago; much of tins was cut from the same stools twice in three years, and I have lately seen acres of these bamboos that were cut en masse four years ago quite as luxuriant in every respect as other clumps that are never cut"

He further wrote to Mr. Routledge:—"It is well known that generally crops of bamboo shoots are only produced after heavy rains, a fall of from 15 to 30 inches; such rains usually occur two or three times a year in Jamaica; the time young shoots take to spring from the ground up to about 25 feet (they are at this height in a fit condition for the paper-makers' requirements), page 44 after such rains averages five weeks. Irrigation would produce constant action at the roots, and there can be no doubt that by the process of cutting, several crops a year may be secured, indeed a continuous succession of cropping could be assured by systematic cultivation and irrigation."

The subject is so important, and one in which success is so much to be desired, that I have not hesitated to represent it at some length, and in its most favourable light.

The discovery of a new paper-material is a subject which excites the most lively interest. It is one on which we are continually responding to inquiries, and it is useful to record here the history of various substances which have been proposed (and specimens of which are deposited in the Kew Museum) in order to save the trouble of renewed investigations about them in the future.

Some disappointment, I think, may be prevented by giving currency to the following remarks by Mr. Routledge upon the general subject, the commercial side of which no one is more fitted to discuss:

"It is only the exceedingly low cost of freight from Spain and Algeria (due to exceptional circumstances) which has enabled Esparto to become as it were naturalised in the paper trade; ... none of the cereal straws, seeds, or grasses can be economically imported into this country, even with their low normal cost, due to the heavy freight and carriage charges, and having regard to the quality of paper they would produce. ... It may be assumed, therefore, that although some of these fibres may possibly be used for paper-making in the countries where they grow, it will not pay to bring them to this country."