Part 1 } Lindsay and Harlow : Lac and Shellac 81 
Lines of Stick-lac Trade. 
As a result of these conditions—the scattered character of the 
industry and the long distances by cooly, 
cart or boat, as well as by train, to the 
important markets—the crude stick-lac has to pass through many 
hands on its way from the cultivator to the factory. The organization 
required for this trade is very complicated. Its outposts consist of 
a large number of stick-lac markets which are really centres of collec¬ 
tion in more or less close touch both with producing areas on the one 
hand and with manufacturing centres on the other. But this trade 
does not follow any very clearly defined routes, for stick-lac will be 
attracted to different markets from one season to another and will be 
passed on at all seasons to any one or more of the manufacturing 
centres. No history of the internal trade of India would be complete 
without some account of the agents who carry it on. The following 
are the principal links in the chain :— 
Th^ first agent is the cultivator or raiyat on whose efforts rests 
the whole fabric of the lac industry of India. As already described 
the cultivator is normally a person of poor education and small 
means who cultivates an acre or two of land on lease from a zamin- 
dar. His holding may include a few trees suitable for the produc¬ 
tion of lac ; or he may take a lease of suitable trees on uncultivated 
lands outside ; or again he may act as an employee of the zamindar 
himself or of a contractor dependent on the zamindar. There is this 
difference, however, between the lac industry and agricultural indus¬ 
tries proper, that whereas the latter are staple industries, the former 
merely provides the cultivator with subsidiary earnings to supplement 
those obtained from agriculture. A natural consequence is that the 
lac industry as a whole tends to be quickly affected by factors which 
would not affect a staple industry. When the price of lac is low 
trees may be neglected and production may fall off comparatively 
quickly ; and production may be similarly affected through the indol¬ 
ence of the cultivator if the agricultural season is good and he is 
obtaining full prices for his field crops. It thus happens that the 
margin of production in the case of lac is considerably wider and 
more elastic than is usual in the case of agricultural industries 
proper. An expert in local conditions of the industry would be 
able to draw a series of concentric rings round any important bazaar, 
and to describe roughly the relative distances from which lac will 
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