Wolfgang wrote:
"Cyli" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 05:56:29 -0600, "Wolfgang"
There is a common plant called the "giant reed"......grows along
roadsides
(as well as other places) throughout the upper Great Lakes region.
I've
looked up the Latin binomial in the past when I thought about
growing it
in
my yard, but don't remember it. It shouldn't be hard to find on
Google.

I have no idea of how similar it is to papyrus. As a matter of
fact, I
don't know much about either plant, but the giant reed is tubular
and
hollow......seems like it ought to float.

Wolfgang

Googled it. Invasive, too, so maybe no one would mind it being
cut.
However, that easy burning part even when green is scary for a
smoker.

Seems to me like yet another reason to grow it.......it's gotta be
cheaper
than buying tobacco.

Wolfgang
who adamantly opposes the sale of giant reeds to minors!

Wolfgang, I tried Googling; reed boat, North America and Canada, and
found very few references that would indicate that there was any use of
reed boats by the indigenous people, who would normally utilize local
building material.

Apparently the N. American reeds were not satisfactory for reed boats,
or at least as you point out better suited for smoking. Or there was
better sources of birch bark, or logs for dugout canoes, and actually
there was a lot better smoking grass, reeds being a poormans
substitute. Building reed boats being the hobby of those who don't
smoke some of the better brands of grass and tabacco, or at least a
poor substitute! And those who smoke, never quite get around to
building boats, or even going buffaloe hunting, so what do you need a
boat for anyway.

A major problem with reed boats is that they are constantly absorbing
water, and will more than double their initial weight. This would make
them very difficult to pull up on shore. A typical reed boat could
start out weighing 15 tons in Peru, and 30 when it became totally water
logged and useless, which was not a problem if all you had to do was
float around a big lake and fish all day.

One site indicated that reed boats typically last only 8 months, and
any reed boat pulled up on shore, was subject to being eaten by the
local cows, so with all the buffaloe in North America, reed boats did
not last very long at all. Apparently the folks down in S.Am. did not
have the large buffalo herds to contend with, or more time on their
hands to build boats, or no other local building materials are
available at 13000 ft. in the high Andean Platean. Or did not have to
portage a 15-30 ton boat, which would be a real drag, if you were
smoking much grass to begin with.

It was just not worth the effort having a boat. Which is probably still
true today, but what the heck, if you're not pouring money into a hole
in the water, and the gov frowns on alternative hobbies of smoking your
boat, what is a guy to do now that the buffaloe are all gone, and there
are not any big lakes around to float on and fish all day? TnT