TAPPING OF LAC 



By Br. MONOSHIRO MORIYA, Professor and Dr. ffOWI SEIRASAWA, Forest Expert 



Lacquer ware is an industrial products peculiar to this country 

 which is highly prized in the West. The material for making this 

 beautiful ware so suitable for the making of household article is 

 obtained from the lac of Rhus vernicifera. There are many methods for 

 the tapping, and we shall give a comparison of these methods with 

 regard to yield of lac, quality, age of tree and locality of production. 

 This comparison is based on personal researches made by the authors 

 during the years 1906 to 1908 in Kanagawa, Ibaraki and Iwate Pre- 

 fectures, well-known districts for the production of lac. 



I. Methods of Tapping 



1. Ordinary Exhaustion Tapping (Koroshigaki). 



In this method, incisions 6 cm long and 0.6 cm deep are cut 

 horisontally on both sides of the stem with a distance of 33 cm between 

 the gashes. The lowest gash is cut at the height of 24 cm from the 

 ground and number of gashes differs according to the size and height of 

 the tree. In a tree 21-24 cm in circumference, the initial gashes are 

 commonly cut at 9-11 places and on every 4th day fresh gashes are cut 

 at a distance of 0.6 cm above the gash and from these gashes the lac is 

 collected. 



The length of gashes is short at the beginning of the tapping but 

 it is made gradually longer till it attains to the regular length of 7 cm. 



The lac collected from the middle of June up to the middle of July 

 is called " Early lac " (Hatsu-urushi) ; the lac collected thence up to the 

 beginning of September is called " Prime lac " (Sakari-urushi) and sub- 

 sequently that which collected up to the beginning of October is called 

 "Final lac" (Suye-urushi). These three sorts of Early, Prime and 

 Final lac are generally named as " Original lac " (Hen-urushi) and form 

 the principal product of the tapping. 



