42 THE WORK OF THE FOREST DEPARTMENT IN INDIA. 



and the large numbers of wood-cutters, sawyers, carters, carri- 

 ers, raftsmen and others working in and near them, employment 

 on an extensive scale is provided to persons engaged in working- 

 up the raw products. Among these latter may be mentioned, 

 carpenters, wheel-wrights, coopers, boat-builders, tanners, ropq- 

 makers, lac-manufacturers, basket-makers and many other- 

 classes of skilled labourers. And yet with the further opening- 

 up of the forests, the extension of systematic working, the wider- 

 use of known products and the possible discovery of new pro- 

 ducts, a steady and extensive development of industries depend- 

 ent on the forests of India may be confidently anticipated in. 

 the future. 



A detailed consideration of the many important fotest in- 

 dustries would fill a large volume; all that can be done here is- 

 to review shortly a few of them by way of example. 



(1) The Indian pine-resin industry. 



The commercial exploitation of the resin of the Indian pines 

 serves a wide range of subsidiary industries. It provides rosin 

 for shellac making, soap manufactories, paper concerns, oil 

 clcth, linoleum, sealing wax, printing inks, electric insulation,, 

 gramophone records, and wheel grease. And it also provides- 

 turpentine, which is the chief thinner and solvent employed in 

 the paint and varnish trades, a mordant in print goods manufac- 

 ture, the basis of synthetic camphor, and an ingredient of boot- 

 polishes, embrocations and liniments. This field is wide enough 

 in peace time, but is considerably expanded in war time by the- 

 rosin used in " setting " shrapnel bullets in shells. 



Of the world's trade in rosin and turpentine, or " naval- 

 stores,'* the United States of America command about 80 per 

 cent, of the output, France coming second with some 15 per cent.- 

 and the rest of the world taking the remaining 5 per cent. 



It is now well over a quarter of a century since forest 

 officers in the North-West of India began to realise the poten- 

 tialities of the wide pine belt along the foot hills and lower 

 slopes of the Himalaya. Many of them being French-trained 

 it was not surprising that the splendidly organized tapping- 



