8 
Indian Forest Records. 
[V<*L. VI 
tapping experiments, one in the North Nasik Division, another in the 
Panch Mahals, and a third in the North Khandesh Division ; the latter 
yielded by far the most important results as yet obtained, having been 
carried out over a period of 5 months, by a specially appointed Forester, 
under the direction of the Divisional Forest Officer, Mr. Starte. 
The experiments were commenced in November 1916 and were 
completed in June 1917. In all other experiments, the duration of 
tapping was limited to one to three months, whereas in this set of experi¬ 
ments tapping was continued throughout the working season; the 
experiments are, therefore, of sufficient interest to justify Mr. Starte’s 
report being quoted in detail. 
“ (1) On November 28th 1916, two parallel experiments in 
Boswellia tapping were commenced near Sulia in the 
Shirpur East Eange of the North Khandesh Forest 
Division. 
“ (2) In Experiment A , thirty trees in each of the following 
girth-classes, viz. :— 
(a) 24 inches—30 inches 
( b ) 30 inches—36 inches 
(c) 36 inches and over 
were lapped in December at about 3 feet 6 inches from the 
ground, a strip of bark 1 foot broad being removed all 
round the stem and nearly as deep as the cambium. The 
bark just above the wounds of trees Nos. 1—15 in each 
girth-class was then gently hammered, while trees Nos. 
16—30 in each girth-class were not bruised in this 
manner. The trees were then left till the end of May 
1917, when the tapping wounds were freshed every 5th 
day until the end of July when the experiment was 
stopped, as the yield of gum-oleo-resin was poor and rain 
washed away a certain amount of the drip which had 
exuded. It was originally proposed to re-bruise the 
bark of trees Nos. 1—15 just above the wounds at 
the time of each freshing, but as from Experiment B 
((see below) it had already been observed that this was 
worse than useless, resulting in a decrease of flow of gum- 
oleo-resin, none of the trees in this experiment were 
rebruised. 
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