next season's growth there will still be found one or more thick culms.

A culm in its first year possesses but few branches, and hence a very limited leaf-apparatus, and it is not until its third season that it attains its fullest development in branches and foliage. For this reason, and also because the shoots of the year are very insufficiently lignified, a culm in its second season requires for its own use a large part of the food it is able to assimilate, and it is only in the third year that it can spare for the rest of the clump all the constructive materials it elaborates. Being then in almost as close connection with the shoot of the year as the immediate parent (two-season-old) culm itself is, it contributes quite as much towards the growth of the new shoot as this latter does. Hence for the development of the new rhizome and resulting shoot its preservation is not less essential than the preservation of the direct mother culm itself. Indeed, it is a well-established fact that even if this latter is cut away, the daughter-rhizome already produced at its base will nevertheless continue to grow on and develop into a new shoot with the help of constructive materials derived from the grandparent culm.

A clump that has free room for development on every side will go on expanding until the whole of it flowers and dies. On the other hand, in a complete crop, each of the individual trees and clumps composing it can occupy no more space than what is left for it by its immediate neighbours. Hence, as long as this space is not yet completely utilised, a clump will go on expanding and producing new shoots year after year. When, however, there is at last no more room left, further useful growth will be impossible unless some of the existing culms are removed by death or the wood-cutter.

Besides expanding by the production of new shoots along the outside, a clump becomes gradually more and more crowded by the development of new shoots also in the midst of the old ones, some species, which form short rhizomes, being especially given to this tendency. Such tendency will be exaggerated in poor, and particularly in shallow, soils, owing to the elongation of the rhizomes being restricted by the small quantity of food available.

We are now able to understand why the culms of each succeeding year are, barring accidents of season, fires, &c., larger than those of the preceding year until the maximum size of the species in question in the given soil and locality has been reached. As year succeeds year, there is an increasing number of stems to ela

borate constructive materials for the new season's growth, and the increasing size of the stems thence resulting obviously reacts in the same direction. If at any stage of its growth we restrict the further expansion of the clump by cutting out, as soon as it appears, everything in excess of this limit, the size and number of the shoots will continue practically the same from year to year. If each succeeding year we curtail more and more the spread of the clump, the result will be that the size as well as number of the shoots will go on diminishing every year. What precedes may be stated in the form of an aphorism thus :-Overcut and the production will fall off both in size and number of shoots; cut out the exact amount of the annual production, and the clump will yield the same results year after year; give rest or cut out less than the annual sum of production, and the size and number of the shoots will go on increasing from year to year until the maximum figures possible in the given soil and locality have been attained.

Although it can in a general manner be said that the strongest clumps will produce the largest shoots, such a statement is not, however, strictly correct, for a given amount of constructive materials present in a clump may form a single very large shoot or several of only ordinary or even small size. The only true criterion of vigour in any case will always be the aggregate sectional area of all the shoots produced in the year in question measured at about one foot above the soil. Hence shoots of the year which grow singly apart from one another, and thus have each at its disposal all the spare food elaborated by its immediate neighbours of the preceding two or three generations, will be thicker than those which come up close together and divide between them this food.

soil.

The age at which a clump begins to produce shoots of marketable dimensions varies very greatly with the species and with the The largest species will of course begin to be productive earliest. For one and the same species the nature of the soil always makes an enormous difference. In a well-manured, well-watered garden soil several generations of culms will come up in a single year, with the result that the time requisite for the attainment of a given size of shoots is shortened in proportion. Thus, whereas out in the forest Dendrocalumus strictus takes, under the most favourable conditions, eight years to produce saleable shoots, in a nursery it may reach this stage of growth in its third, and sometimes even in its second, year. As the natural term of life of a clump varies, according to the species, probably from 20 to 50

years, it is evident that for a very considerable term of its existence it remains unproductive. *

Before closing this rapid survey of the mode of growth of bamboos, a peculiarity must be noticed which affects to no little extent the work of the wood-cutter. The bending of the rhizome to grow up vertically upwards is continued in the shoot itself after this latter has come up out of the ground and often until it has attained a considerable length. The result is that the shoot, even if produced quite outside the edge of the clump, bends inwards and enters in amongst the foliage of the shoots of preceding years, so that when it is cut, there is always some difficulty in disengaging it from the interlacing mass of branches and twigs. The difficulty is greatest in the case of shoots which originate in the middle of the clump, and if the clump is at all crowded, some of the shoots inside cannot be taken out except in short lengths.

RESUME. The principal facts discussed in the preceding paragraphs may now with advantage be brought together and briefly stated thus:

I.—The bamboo plant, from being at first a single individual becomes a compound entity or clump, the clump expanding itself by the production of new shoots. In the open this expansion has no limit, and ends only with the death of the clump, and the number of new shoots follows a steadily increasing series from year to year. In a close forest a similar expansion occurs until the clump has occupied nearly the whole of the space available to it. This is the culminating point; thenceforward the rate of expansion and the number of culms produced each year diminishes, and when all the available space has been occupied, no new growth is possible except in replacement of casualties.

II. During the ascending phase of expansion the size of the shoots produced in successive years goes on increasing from mere switches to the maximum dimensions attainable by the given. species in the given soil and locality; and when these dimensions have been reached, no further improvement is possible.

III. New culms are produced almost exclusively upon the shoots of the youngest generation with the co-operation principally of the shoots of the immediately preceding generation, so that the removal of older shoots, especially those from the fourth generation backwards, will have no appreciable effect on the size and number of the new shoots. As the amount of new production will be pro

This fact also demonstrates the expediency of forcing early productiveness in plantations by putting out only strong nursery plants.

portionate to the amount of foliage, and as the same amount of foliage will be borne by a few properly-spaced culms as by a larger number more crowded together, the thinning out of the oldest and crooked and weakest shoots will have no effect on the vegetation of the clump or the aggregate basal area of the new culms.

IV.—The aggregate basal area of the new culms being the same, their individual size, within the maximum limit attainable by the species under prevailing conditions, will be greater the smaller their number is.

V. The larger and more vigorous the parent-culms of the two last generations are, the larger will be the new shoots which they will produce.

VI.--New culms keep coming up even in the middle of the clump, so that, saving the case of a few exceptional species which throw out very long runner-like rhizomes, the clump tends to become so overcrowded that the safe extraction of the shoots becomes increasingly difficult, often even impossible, with the advancing age of the clump.

VII.-The same difficulty exists in a measure even with the shoots produced along the outside of the clump, owing to the habit these shoots have of bending up inwards soon after they have come out of the ground and entering the inextricable tangle of interlacing stems and branches.

MODE OF EXPLOITATION.

The first thing to determine is the age at which a clump may commence to be exploited. Since it is chiefly the last two generations of culms which contribute towards the production of new shoots, it is obvious that exploitation may not commence until the clump contains at least three generations of shoots of the largest size, until, in other words, such shoots have been appearing for at least three consecutive years. To begin to work a clump earlier would inevitably result in arresting its growth and throwing it back for years. In order to avoid all possible risk, it will nearly always be advisable, especially in dry and poor soils, not to touch any clump until large shoots have been appearing in it for full four years running.

The limitation here laid down applies of course only to the exploitation proper, and does not exclude certain preliminary thinning operations made with the object of keeping the clumps sufficiently open and thus giving the individual culmus free spreading room both in the air and in the soil, in order to encourage the early formation of large shoots, and thereby curtail the long period of

waiting during which the overcrowded unthinned clump would go on producing an excessive number of mostly small unsaleable culms. These thinnings also prepare the clumps for easy and systematic exploitation.

It may here be said, once for all, that whether we merely thin or carry out the regular exploitations, every shoot that is removed. must be cut as near the ground as possible; the effect of leaving stumps that do not die for years would be exactly the same as if no thinning at all had been effected.

The time for commencing the exploitations having arrived, it is necessary to know how much and what to cut out at each exploitation. Since the exploitations may either be annual or recur at longer intervals of two or more years, we have two distinct cases to consider under this bead.

1. Exploitation annual.

Theoretically speaking, it should be sufficient to leave standing only the last two generations of shoots, together with whatever else is too thin or too crooked to be marketable. Actually, however, there is no advantage of any kind in sparing crooked or unsound or weakly shoots, and the clumps must in any case be kept open enough for the unhindered appearance of numerous strong new shoots and the easy extraction of produce. Hence, in practice, it is always necessary to remove some at least of the shoots of those two generations, obtaining the requisite compensation by preserving an equal number of older, healthy, straight and wellspaced shoots that are still in the full vigour of vegetation. The spacing of the culms left must in any case be proportionate to the requirements of the species concerned and the nature of the soil and climate in question.

*

The main principle to observe from the very beginning in the exploitation of a clump is that while it is still expanding, nothing should be done to check its increasing vigour, and then, when it has attained its maximum development, to keep unimpaired its powers of vegetation. Both objects are fully secured by adhering to the rule laid down in the immediately foregoing paragraph. During the stage of expansion, the number and size of the shoots of successive years forms, as we have seen above, an increasing series, so that the number and size of the shoots preserved in successive years, in following the rule of exploitation laid down, will

These shoots will furnish all the requirements of basket-makers, who require only the soft, flexible, imperfectly-lignified culms of the current season.