rnocEEDixcs of the third entomological meeting 7l5 



industry has been reduced to now-a-days. What and in what direction 

 this vitality has lain is known to those who have paid any attention to 

 'the industry for some time. The e are years of depression as well as 

 inflation, but with all this the industry has existed and is likely to exist 

 for some time to come. Whether this will continue for ever only futurity 

 can decide. But I am sanguine, if proper measures will be taken to 

 safeguard the industry even so late as now, the possibility of the distur- 

 bing factors operating early will at least be avoided or indefinitely 

 postponed. The industry has of late assumed a very precarious aspect. 

 Hundreds are benefitted suddenly, whilst equal numbers, if not more, 

 are more or less affected adversely annually. So great is the element of 

 uncertainty that few dare to risk their money either in cultivation or 

 in manufacture, and the fact is borne out by the low prices prior to the 

 breaking out of the present war wlien the minimum of Rs. 32 per maund 

 of shellac was touched. During the great war fresh uses were found 

 for the commodity and prices rose by leaps and bounds, so much so, 

 that the maximum of Rs. 135 per maund was touched for a few days. 

 There was a general scramble ; the cultivator as well as the manufac- 

 turer was anxious to make the most of the temporary Swell in prices. 

 The former went hunting every nook and corner of the lac-producing 

 areas and, I am told, in particular lac-growing tracts so great was the 

 rush that even fairly large-Sized trees were cut down for the sake of a 

 few seers of lac on them. But from what I have been able to gather, 

 the cultivator -^raS not much better off than he was before. He got 

 some but not the amount commensurate with the labour and risks 

 risked by him. An instance of this I can cite from my own experience 

 while visiting the forests in Singbhum with the late Mr. Charles 

 Macdonald, who had taken a contract in those forests in 1908-1909. We 

 saw the Kols living in very remote corners of the inacces.?ible forests, 

 looking after a few kusumb trees on the banlcs of a nulla frequented by 

 ail sorts of wild beasts. We saw a Kol guarding the trees right in the 

 middle of December with hardly any covering over his body, except a 

 miserable thatch constructed from twigs and grasses collected locally. 

 At the present time, as well as in the past, the middleman has benefitted 

 himself the most, doling out a miserable pittance to the all-important 

 cultivator who risks all, even his life, for the sake of a few seers of crude 

 lac on the trees. Hitherto the cultivation has been confined to India, 

 Burma and to some extent Indo-China, Annam and Cambodia. But 

 the majority of the world's demand is met with from India. Recently 

 attempts were either made or are being made to grow lac in Formosa 

 by the Japanese on S. trijuga, a tree which grows in numbers there as a 

 shade tree to camphor trees, by the Germans at Araani in South-East 



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