Part I. ] 
Steering : Note on the Lac Insect, 
61 
Central Provinces and now successful in the Raipur Division require to be 
more widely known and introduced into other parts of the country. 
The chief improvements required to be made are in the direction of 
the formation of regular areas of coppice, either from seed or cuttings, 
which should be worked on a definite rotation. 
The particular trees made use of would vary with the locality, and 
experiment is required to find out which of the species would coppice 
best, i.e., which would give the largest and strongest stem capable of sup- 
porting the lac insects in the shortest space of time, and what is the best 
rotation to work these stems on. 
Information is also required on the subject of the capabilities of the 
various trees to be grown from cuttings and the number of years in which 
such cuttings can be made to yield a crop of lac and for how long they will 
continue to yield a full one. It is said that Ficus infectoria will bear a 
crop after three years. 
Experiments are also required to be made with such shrubs as Cajanus 
indicus {arhar dal). It is reported that this latter’plant if sown in Novem- 
ber in Assam will be fit to plant out at the close of the following rains, 
the plants being by then stout saplings averaging four feet in height. 
Planted in rows 4 feet by 8 feet apart (1,360 to the acre) it will, if well 
cultivated, be ready to receive the insect exactly two years after first sow- 
ing. If this is really the case, and experiments will easily demonstrate 
the truth of the statement, it is almost inconceivably surprising that the 
cultivation of lac has been so neglected in the Province of Assam. Fur- 
ther, it is stated that lac reared on Cajanus indicus, which is said to be 
the best lac produced in Assam, can be put on to other lac-rearing plants 
such as Ficus cordifolia. Ficus comosa. Ficus elastica. Ficus religiosa, 
Zizyphus jujuba, and Ficus altissima. Crops of lac on the arhar dal could 
thus be raised in nurseries in the forest from which the seed-lac could be 
put out on to trees in the forest or distributed to the inhabitants of 
forest and other villages. The formation of these lac-nurseries is strongly 
to be recommended in Assam, and in fact in many parts of India, with a 
view to demonstrating their usefulness to the people and thus improv. 
ing the methods of collection and increasing the amounts available for 
export. One of the means by which the Department will be enabled to 
largely develop the lac industry in many parts of the country besides 
facilitating their own work, will be by the formation of forest villages 
inhabited by people who, undertaking a little cultivation sufficient to 
enable them to supply their requirements in grain, devote the rest of 
