29 
Part I] Lindsay and Harlow : Lac and Shellac 
to secure the top of the market before other cultivators unload. The 
result of this improvidence is that, when the swarming period comes 
round, he too often finds that he has neither the brood nor the money 
to buy it, and either leaves his trees uninfected or mortgages his future 
crop to a money-lender in order to secure funds for the purchase of 
fresh brood, which is always sold at exorbitant rates during this 
period. His trees remain too lightly infected, and he may find the 
next crop hardly worth gathering and will have to leave it on the 
tree so that the subsequent crop may be big. Further, his choice 
of trees for infection is not carefully or intelligently made, and the 
trees never receive any special pruning prior to inoculation, however 
desirable this may be. Finally, when prices are low, the brood will 
be allowed almost to die out and brood-lac may be practically unpro¬ 
curable when prices rise again. 
The Esociet Company (W. A. Fraymouth, Esq., F.C.S., Manag¬ 
ing Director) of Maihar, C.I., a company which aims at developing 
the resources of the States of Central India, employs the following 
method. It has adopted what is really the first principle of lac 
cultivation, namely, that no lac should be removed from the forest 
until it has surrendered its swarm of larvae. The principal lac-bear¬ 
ing tree in this area is the Ghont. As labour is not so difficult to 
obtain during the winter season as during the rains, the Esociet 
rely chiefly on the Katki or winter crop for their market crop 
of lac but take care not to collect the phunki lac until the 
requisite number of larvae have swarmed to provide for the 
Baisakhi or summer crop. As soon as the summer brood shows 
signs of being ready to swarm, labourers are sent into the forest to 
cut off all the branches which carry lac. These are laid on other 
trees not yet infected, on which the larvae are allowed to swarm. 
No other pruning is done. When the larvae have swarmed the 
phunki lac is collected. The chief defect of this method, which is a 
great advance on those previously discussed, is lack of concentra¬ 
tion. The whole area under cultivation has to be regularly guarded 
to prevent theft, and the collection of the phunki lac is rendered very 
difficult by the indiscriminate way in which it is scattered through¬ 
out the forest. The methods employed in the Damoh Government 
Forests are similar to the above and it is probable that both have the 
same origin as the Esociet Company leased the Damoh Forests in 
1915—17. 
[29] 
