Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1880 — The National plaut of the Chinese. [ARTICLE]

The National plaut of the Chinese.

Thb uses of toe bamboo, aanDr; S. W. Williams (author of “Tito Middle Kingdom"), ere ae numerous as to entitle this gross to be oelled the national plant. It grows naturally throughout the country nearly to the latitude of Pekin, diminishing in sise and strength as one goes northward. The varieties induced daring the tong period of its culture ere numerous, and a native Writer on its propagation observes at the outset of hw treatise that he oould not undertake so much as to name them all, and would therefore confine himself to a consideration of sixty three of the principal. Soma of them are like trees, forty pr fifty feet high, with culms eight inches in diameter at the root; others resemble pipe-stems through their length, graceful and slender as a magician's wand; while one kind presents a black, another has a bright yellow skin. This plant may weu be called useful, for it ie applied by the Chinese to such a vast variety of purposes that they are puzzled Coget along without it when they emigrate where it does not grow. The tender but tasteless shoots are cut lor food, either boiled, pickled, or oomfited, as the customer wishes. The seeds, too, furnish a farina suitable for cakes, and the Chinese have a proverb that the bamboo flowers chietty in yean of famine. The gnarled roots are carved into fantastic images of men, birds, monkeys, or monstrous perversions of animated nature; out into lantern handles or canes, known in commerce as “ whangees;” or turned by the lathe into oval sticks for worshipers to divine whether the gods will hear or refuse their petitions. The tapering culms are used for all purposes to which poles can be applied in carrying, supporting, propelling and measuring, by the porter, the boatman and the carpenter in all cases where lightness, strength and length are reqni* sites. The joists of houses and the ribs of sails, the shafts of spears and the wattles of hurdles, the tubes of aqueducts and the rafters of roofs, the handles of umbrellas and the ribs of fans are all constructed of bamboo. The leaves are sewed upon cords in layers to make rain cloaks, swept into heaps for manure, matted into thatches, and used as wrappers iu cooking rice dumplings. . Cut into slivers of various sizes, the wood is worked into baskets and trays of every form and fancy, twisted into cables, plaited into awnings over boats, houses and streets, and woven into mats for the scenery of the theater, the roofs of houses and the casings of goods. The shavings even are picked into oakum and mixed with those of the-rattan, to be stuffed into mattresses. The bamboo furnishes material for the bed and the couch, chop-sticks to use in eating, pipes for smoking, fiutes, curtains to hang in the doorway, brooms, screens, stools, coops, stands, sofas, and other articles, too numerous to mention, of household necessity and luxury. The mattress to lie on, the chair to sit upon, the table to dine from, the food to eat and the fuel to cook it with arp alike derived from it. The ferule to govern the pupil and the book he studies both originate here. The tapering tubes of the native organ and the dreaded instillment of the lictor, the skewer to pin the hair with, and the hat to screen the head, the paper to write on, the pencil to write with and the cup to hold the pencils; the rule to measure lengths, the cup .to gauge quantities and the bucket to draw water; the bellows to blow the fire with and the tube to held the match; the bird cage and the crab net, the lifepreserver and the children's buoy, the fish pole and sumpitan, the water-wheel and eaves-trongh, sedan, wheelbarrow and handcart, with scores of machines and utensils, are one and all furnished or completed by this magnificent grass, the graceful beauty of which when growing is comparable to its varied usefulness when cut down. China could hardtv be governed without the constant application of the bamboo, nor could the people carry ontheir daily pursuits without it. 'lt scr.cs to embellish the garden of the patrician and shade the hamlet of the peasant; it composes the he Igc which separates their grounds, assists in con--t nicling tools to work their lands, and feeds the cattle which labor on them. The boatman and weaver finds its slender poles indispensable to their trades, while there is nothing the artists paint so well on wares and embroideries. The tabasheer found in the internodes has its uses in native pharmacy, and the siltcious cuticle furnishes the engraver a good surface for carving and polishing.