The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1895-06-01
THE USEFUL BAMBOO.
The Chinese Utilize the Plant In a Great
Variety of Ways.

The Chinese Utilize the Plant In a Grea.
Variety of Ways.
just go and look at your long,
slender bamboo fishing pole and try
to fancy what a house would look
like built of that sort of thing. Yet
when a Chinanan wishes to build a
house he doesn't hire an architect
and look up a contractor and turn
gray Over plumbers and decorators.
He just merely goes and plants a few
bamboo roots. Then he goes on quiet
ly attending to his business and lets
them grow. In a few months he has
a fine forest of bamboo from 40 to so
feet high and with stalks ranging
from half an inch to 10 inches in di-
ameter. He digs a trench the shape
and size he wishes his house and
proceeds to cut the trees he thinks
the proper size and sets them up in
his trench, which he then fills up.
With the slenderer stalks he makes
rafters and shingles it with bamboo
leaves. The windows are delicate
lattice work of bamboo, and the fur
niture is of slender bamboo, bent
and curled and plated. His water
bucket is a good big stalk sawed off
just below the joint and made as
deep as he needs above it.
For a bottle he takes a slender
piece and treats it in the same way.
If in the confusion of building he
mislays his knife, he just takes a
good sharp edge of bamboo and does
just as well for everything, except
cutting bamboo, as if it were Sheffield
steel. While he is building he keeps
off the pangs of hunger by cutting
the little tender shoots just as they
peep from the ground and cooking
them like asparagus. Of course we
all know how dangerous it is to move
at once into a new house, it is s
likely to be damp, and so Mr.. Sin
Foo catches a severe cold. All he
does is to run out to his bamboo
thicket, gather a few leaves, boil
them and drink the tea. In a day
or SO he is all right and ready to en-
joy the delicious dinner Mrs. Sin Foo
has prepared in honor of the roof
raising" She has delicate boiled
bamboo shoots, bamboo grains baked
in a bamboo joint with honey and
bamboo shoots candied with sugar.
l can't tell you all they make of
bamboo. Masts and cordage, kites,
fences, bridges, fans, pipes for car
rying water over the ricefields, the
finest of paper and in fact nearly
everything they use. The strangest
of all uses is to bore gas and oil wells
with it. They begin by twirling a
hollow bamboo pole where they wish
to sink the well. This gradually
works its way into. the ground.
When sunk to its full length, they
fasten another to the end of it and
keep on twirling. This operation
they keep up until they strike gas
or oil, which comes gushing up
through the poles. They use them
also for bringing brine to the surface
from the salt wells. And then just
think how much cleaner, prettier
and more graceful it is than our ugly
iron work! Apropos of this, I re-
member an incident of the dainty
little Japanese folk who took part in
the Columbian exposition recently.
In the space allotted for their village
was n of u ordinary iron water
taps. 1t never occurs to us to notice
how hideous they are, but the Japa-
nese looked at it, shuddered as one
man and at onces set about hiding the
hateful object with clean, shining
bamboo Star.