TACHARDIA 



,i PLA: LACCA 



Improvement 



is of the same tree ami tied m .-i.i.v.-i.ii-i.r ;i..l uiuble posit 

 The l;ii-v;i- on swarming crawl t<> n-w wood and become fixed If the 



olijiM-t ill thf collet -tion of lar l.e I .. ,,14 



(that i.s, the lac-iMicnM.-d t\\i^s) should \>< iirv 



h.ive >\\.inned. Hut if tin- resin-luc \n- - 



reason to delay collection until th. 



industry assumed its present form while L ;,tlly valuable 



with the resin) was a profitable by-prod 'i I 



presence admittedly depreciates the shell-: .really; r 



>e and possibly to the resin injurious i .f removal; and the 



decomposition of the larva gives the offensive smell to the factory, \\ 

 well- nigh becomes a public nuisance. It would therefore aeera that 

 time has more than come when this state of affairs might be mit:_ 

 some change in the season of collection, that would allow of the 

 being very largely removed before the stick-lac comes to th- 

 The collecting seasons at present adopted are May to June for th. 



-1 and October to November for the other; a delay of a month o: 

 weeks in each case would see the swarming accomplished. [Cf. with 

 opinion of Hooper, Kept. Labor. Ind. Mus., 1906-7, 7.] 



Improvement in Quality. There would seem to be little or no doubt Several 

 that in India there is not one species of T<n-lnirtlin. but several. The Specie*. 

 well-known different qualities of lac are due, it has been said, to the plants 

 on which the insects feed. This is, however, likely to receive an 

 more rational explanation, viz. that the grades of lac are due to being the 

 resins of different species of insect. It is also well known that the forms of 

 lac found on leguminous plants (or on soft- wooded plants), such a- ftfftea 

 fromlostt and Cujiimts imfintM, can with difficulty be induced to live 

 upon hard-wooded trees, such as S<-hh-irln-rn ti-i/ni/tt and S/ivren RKM. 

 rohustd, upon which lac is nevertheless found. But there is still a further 

 consideration of importance. It has been observed that there are special 

 cultivated races, such as those found on .trm-in tu-uhirn. In Sind and 

 adjacent tracts that plant is used as a food-stock, but hardly anywhere 

 else is lac to be seen on that tree. We have here either a special race or a 

 remarkable climatic adaptation. Further, all over India albino-broods cumuc 

 have been recorded as occasionally seen. It would thus appear that * 

 were the selection of stock placed on a rational and scientific basis vast 

 improvements in quality might be effected, if it were not possible actually 

 to evolve a white insect or at all events one to a large extent devoid 

 of the objectionable colour, the removal of which so seriously enhances the 

 cost of the present-day resin. 



Food of the Lac Insect. The insect lives upon a large number of Food of the 

 widely different plants. In The Agricultural Ledger (I.e. 210-3) I have Lac. 

 given a list of some 56 trees. Those best known are lint<-n ;,>,,</*". 

 'l-'inis i-<-li<iins<i. SclilfirlH-rn trij"f/"' >/"<" rohti.tfn and 

 7iii/ji/iifs .Jnjnlxi. These are all indigenous Indian trees, so that the 

 lac obtained from them may be called wild lac (the insect being at most 

 semi-domesticated) ; but two plants are specially grown for it, and where 

 this is the case, the lac may be regarded as a plantation product and nmnifti 

 accordingly spoken of as existing under a greater degree of cultivation than * 

 the wild insect. The plants specially grown are .1 <//< ,/,<///< in Sind, 

 Kajputana and Gujarat : and ('ii.jtiiui* imliriin in Assam. But lac doe 

 not, in many localities at least, pay as a special plantation product. The 



1057 67 



