Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/79

 Among the Palns. 75

are covered by those plantations. Both high and low ground may be used, but the greater portion of the plants axe found in low lands vurrounded by embankments. ‘The number of plants to the acre varies according to the soil and situation. Six hundred to an acre is considered a sparse planting, and the fans produced are of a coarse texture, the yield being from six to ten thousand each year to the acre. When about six thousand palms io the acre are planted they produce a much finer quality of fans, sometimes called, “ glass fans,” from their delicate texture and transparency. The annual yield is propor- tionately greater. From each tree from five to fifteen fans are cut annually. The age at which trees begin to produce fans of value is seven or eight years, but they frequently live to be several hundred years old, producing all the time.

The district of San-ui supplies the Chinese market with all the palm-leaf fans used by the people, as well as those exported in such large quantities. The number annually produced amounts to several millions by actual count. About one hundred Chinese firms are engaged in the business of collecting and manufacturing these fans. The work of preparing them, after they have been cut, employs from ten to twenty thousand men and women, the latter being chiefly employed in binding the fans with thread or coloured crape and silk borders.

The various steps in this great industry are as follows :— First, planting the seed, which soon sprouts, and after several months puts forth leaves above the ground. After one year the young planis are set out more or less thickly, according to the desire to have coarse or fine fans. A