Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 edition. Excerpt: ...stem of the Livistonia chinemis, or ordinary small palm, which grows wild in most districts of South China if it is allowed to do so, but usually for the. fan trade is grown in low-lying grounds in the San Wui district of the Pearl Kiver delta in Kwangtung Province--one of the four districts from which most of the Chinese in the United States originally emigrate. When thus cultivated or grown the palms are thickly sown, varying, according to methods followed, from 5,000 to 10.000 plants to the acre, the fewer the plants the better the return in high-grade leaves. It requires about seven years to grow the palms to the size necessary for good fan leaves, and after that they furnish an annual crop indefinitely, the Chinese stating that they live for hundreds of years producing their annual crop. An old tree will produce leaves as large as 5 feet in length with a breadth just above the lower end of perhaps 3 feet. Preparing the Fans--Various Styles and Prices. The leaves aro made into fans simply by picking, sorting, sun drying, sulphur bleaching to rid them of the green color they usually have when dried in the sun, and trimming and binding them with a fiber taken from their stems. The smaller leaves are used largely for thatching houses, coolie raincoats, and similar purposes. The stems furnish the, fiber exported as "palm fiber" and used for the manufacture of scrubbing brushes, brooms, and the like. The common palm-leaf fans are shipped out of Hongkong in bundles of about 500 fans each and are valued ready for shipment in Hongkong at from $0.09 to $0.10 gold per dozen. There are in this market, however, many variations from the common type of palm-leaf fan having the palm leaf as a basis. There are what are known as Tonkin fans...