790 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE THIED ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



Tlie United Provinces. The cultivation and collection of lac in these 

 Provinces are not so extensive as in the Provinces noted above. Lac 

 is, however, locally collected in the Garhwal Forests, Saharanpur (a 

 part only), Kheri, Pilibhit, Kumaon, Gonda, Bandelkhand, Bahraich, 

 Siwalik range, Eae Bareli and Partabgarh. The host plants are Butea 

 frondosa, Ficus spp. and Zizyphus xylopyra. Bes^ides these, there are 

 Small collections which are utihzed locally for the manufacture of toys 

 and bangles. The climatic condition^ are in some localities a bar to 

 the further extension of the cultivation, but on the other hand there 

 are places which are quite suitable for cultivation provided good and 

 cheap broodlac is at hand to be put on the Palas trees which abound 

 in the plains districts. Mirzapur is an important centre of lac cultiva- 

 tion and manufacture and for nearly a century it was the only^ centre 

 of shellac manufacture in Northern India. Even now, in almost' all the 

 factories in Calcutta, Kanchi, Purulia and other shellac-manufacturing 

 places, the expert labour is wholly drawn from Mirzapur. These people 

 move in families to remote places to earn their livelihood as shellac 

 manufacturers and some of them are so clever that they cannot be dis- 

 placed easily by local men without jeopardizing the interests of the manu- 

 facturer. The hilly, as well as the submontane tracts, as well as those 

 adjoining the Vindhya mountains should suit for the propagation of 

 the lac insect, but actual experiments have to be made to prove this. 



The Punjab. As in the United Provinces, there are large tracts 

 wherein regular cultivation and collection are practised. There are 

 local collections in Gujrat, Ambala, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, GurdaSpur 

 and the Kapurthala State. In Hoshiarpur, it is said, three to four 

 thousands of niaunds are collected locally and the produce finds its 

 way to the shellac factories at Amritsar. Lac is found growing sponta- 

 neously on Ficus spp., Butea, Acacia and Zizyphus. On the whole 

 the collections are not very large, but in some tracts the host plants are 

 present in numbers and only exTperiments can show whether these could 

 be used for the propagation of the lac insect, so as to yield some income. 



Bengcd. Lac to some extent is grown and collected in the districts 

 of Birbhum, Murshidabad, Bankura, Midnapur and Rangpur. The 

 host plants are Butea, Zizyphus and Schleichera. There are considerable 

 areas in Birbhum, Midnapur and Bankura districts which could be utih- 

 zed for lac cultivation as these abound with Butea frondosa plants. In 

 the Murshidabad district, Z. jujuha plants are grown on field embank- 

 ments and are annually inoculated with lac which the cultivators pur- 

 chase in the local hats. The system of cultivation is quite unique and 

 I have not seen anything like this attempted in other parts of India. 

 The plants are pollarded very carefully and inoculated with lac when 



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