158 Brigade-Surgeon J. E. T. Aitchison's Notes on Prodiicts 



to be employed in dyeing and tanning, and when dried they 

 rapidly break up, parts of them appearing like portions of 

 the covering of the nut. The leaves of this tree become 

 affected with galls, which are valued in the trade for 

 dyeing silk. These galls are irregular-shaped spheroids, 

 from the size of a cherry to that of a large gooseberry, 

 borne on a short stalk, and usually growing from the upper 

 surface of the blade of the leaf. From the great trade value 

 of the nuts, and of the galls, there is much jealousy as to the 

 forest rights, as to whom they may belong, and in what pro- 

 portion to each tribe. Half the blood feuds of the nomads 

 originate in their quarrels over the rights of produce in 

 these forests. All persons concerned in the rights to the 

 forest produce unitedly collect the nuts, and the general 

 harvest is subsequently divided in the allotted proportions to 

 those to whom they may belong. In the meanwhile the 

 Amir's tax collectors are at hand ready to carry off the 

 usual tax imposed on produce before it is permitted to leave 

 the ground. The nuts are exported in immense quantities 

 to Afghanistan proper and India, where they are highly 

 appreciated by all classes, as well as to Persia and Turkistan. 

 The galls are exported chiefly to Persia and Turkistan, a 

 very small proportion to India. The gum-resin is a kind of 

 mastich, and is identical with that obtained from Pistacia 

 Teeebinthus, var. mutica, similarly employed as a house- 

 hold remedy to be applied to cuts, wounds, and sores, and 

 goes by the same names. From this resin a turpentine can 

 be obtained. The fresh gum-resin, as collected from the trees, 

 has a most pleasant fruity odour ; at first it is very liquid, and 

 then gradually hardens on exposure to a very brittle, almost 

 transparent, rather resin-like consistency. The oil is rarely 

 extracted from the nuts, and then only to be employed in 

 medicine. The wood is highly valued for the manufacture 

 of agricultural instruments, especially ploughs, also to make 

 spoons ; it certainly makes the best firewood of any in the 

 country. Sheep, camels, and goats feed greedily on the 

 foliage, hence the name applied to the galls, " the goat's store." 

 The galls are, as already stated, employed in dyeing and 

 tanning, but the leaves are not. 



At Ptawulpindi, in the Punjab, there were, a few years 

 ago, some large bushes of Pistacia veea grown from the seeds 



