182 UTILIZATION OF EXUDED PRODUCTS. 



height of several yards, a series of such gutters and pots will have 

 to be fixed one above another. 



Experience both in Jaonsar and in the Punjab has proved that, 

 although the flow of resin is most active daring the season of rest 

 and when the weather is warm and dry, it still continues to ooze 

 out in fair, and sometimes in considerable, abundance throughout 

 the rest of the year. Pots left hanging in winter, under the snow, 

 have been found to have overflowed with resin. It is, therefore, 

 for consideration whether somewhat larger pots than those now used 

 should not be tried, and due arrangements made for carrying on oper- 

 ations during the entire open season. Rainy weather is no draw- 

 back at all, for water being lighter than the resin cannot prevent the 

 pots from filling with the latter. Large pots would also necessitate 

 less frequent visits to each tree in order to collect the exudations, 

 and one man could then look after more trees than he does now. 



The blaze system of tapping, although it is only in an experiment- 

 al stagCj already promises to produce a larger outturn than the niche 

 method. The two systems, carried out with chir trees situated in one 

 and the sama area, gave the following yield in the first year : — 

 Average per niche, ... ... ... 7*4 lbs. 



,, „ blaze, ... ... ... 6'2 ,, 



The niched trees were all large and specially selected, 20 in 

 number, while the blazed trees numbered 3,221 and covered a 

 whole hillside of about 200 acres only, so that many of them were 

 quite small and not very vigorous. In the second and third years 

 the niched trees gave respectively 4*9 and 4'5 lbs. per niche, 

 whereas the corresponding figures for the blazed trees were 6 

 and 8 lbs.* respectively per blaze. Even if the blaze system did 

 not increase the yield, it at least saves the base of the stem from 

 complete mutilatioti, and as it determines a flow of resin in the 

 trunk uniformly in every direction, it will produce more highly re- 

 sinous and therefore harder and more durable timber. Mr. Mann 

 says that a single long blaze is often made in the trunk of Khasya 

 pine trees one year before they are felled, with the object of increas- 

 ing the amount of resin in the wood. The wood of trees so treated 

 contains 16 per cent, of its total weight of resin. 



A remarkable fact brought to light by the experiments in Jaon- 

 sar deserves to be mentioned. If a blaze goes through the sap- 

 wood of the Pinus longifolia, the exposed heartwood soon becomes 

 full of cracks and dries up at the surface, and ultimately the flow of 

 resin from the blaze is almost completely arrested. In the Pinus 



* The last figure is only approximate, as the exact quantity has not yet been 

 communicated to the author! 



