Part I. ] 
Stebbing : Note on the Lac Insect. 
47 
and the daily increasing demand for the product, of which India is the 
chief producer, would seem to necessitate considerably more attention 
being paid to its proper collection than has been the case in the past. 
To this end, since it is pecuharly a product of tree cultivation, it would 
seem desirable that the Forest Department should turn its attention to 
working out the best methods by which a largely increased and sustained 
yield can be obtained and to cultivating object-lesson crops all over the 
country with a view to gradually weaning the native cultivator from his 
at present quite inadequate methods of supplying the existing demand. 
As matters are now shaping there appears to be but small reason to doubt 
that money expended in this work will yield very large returns. 
(c) In District Lands. 
2. Sind. 
Very little lac cultivation seems to take place in the Bombay dis- 
tricts. Bombay appears to import most of its 
I. Bombay. from the United Provinces and Oudh. 
Lac is produced in small quantities in Dobad in the Panch Mahals. 
Mr. G. M. Ryan, I.F.S., wrote the following note on lac in Sind in 
1896 which is reproduced here. When it is 
remembered that exports of lac from Karachi 
have reached the figure of R5, 49,335 (in 1904-05) the question of the 
extension of the cultivation would seem to be worthy of consideration. 
Mr. Ryan wrote : — 
Trees on ivJiich lac is found . — “Babul (Acacia arabica), Kandi (Proso- 
pis spicigera), ber (Zizyphus jujuba), s'irus (Albizzia Lebbek), banyan 
(Ficus bengalensis), tamarisk (Tamarix gallica) are the trees on which 
lac may be seen in the province. Most of it, however, is collected from 
the babul which grows gregariously along the Indus, forming dense 
forests. Kandi in places is also gregarious, but the insect does not usually 
affect this tree under such conditions. On Kandi it is found about 12 
to 14 miles south of Hyderabad along the left bank of the Fuleh, chiefly 
where the two species Kandi and babul are mixed, and occasionally in 
the Khipra Taluka in Thar and Parkar. The insect does not appear to 
be known on this tree at all north of Hyderabad. On ber, sirus, and 
banyan, it is seen mostly along road-sides and banks and canal banks. 
There is one banyan just below the Hyderabad Gymkhana on the 
road-side which bears a splendid crop every cold weather.” 
Crops of lac . — “ There are two seasons for gathering lac, one being in 
the cold weather and the other in the hot. The cold weather crop is 
