Part I] Lindsay and Harlow : Lac and Shellac 107 
will at the same time contribute to the building up of a coherent 
body of reasoned knowledge regarding the whole subject. 
Lac is at present a valuable monopoly in India, with a demand 
that will probably increase; but it would be short-sighted to assume 
that the present favourable conditions must continue indefinitely, or 
that India’s great natural advantages in the matter of lac production 
must necessarily safeguard her against all competition. In an indus¬ 
try of this sort there are two obvious directions from which competi¬ 
tion may have to be faced. Either (as in the case of indigo) a 
substitute may be discovered sufficiently good and cheap to supplant 
the natural product, or (as in the case of silk) other countries may 
succeed in establishing the lac insect and may undersell India by 
the application of scientific knowledge and organization to their 
methods of production. 
The position of the industry will be much strengthened if the 
possibility of future competition is recognized, and if arrangements 
are now made for carrying out such work as may be necessary for 
attaining increased efficiency in production and general economic 
stability. 
Of the two stabilizing methods recommended in this Report, the 
Forest Department is carrying out the first, by the expansion of the 
area of departmental lac cultivation in Government forests, an area 
which has hitherto been practically negligible as compared with the 
total area of cultivation. In connection with this expansion it is 
proposed to create a certain number of “ brood-farms ” for the pro¬ 
duction of brood-lac and its sale at a reasonably low rate to local 
cultivators. 
With respect to the second method (the establishment of some 
form of research organization) it is suggested that the trade might 
engage the necessary scientific officers and finance the work of a 
lac laboratory for a suitable period. These officers would work in 
close touch with the Forest Department, but in the interest of the 
trade. 
Preliminary grouping of enquiries .—The processes to be inves¬ 
tigated are those that convert the carbon dioxide of the air and the 
plant-sap rising from the ground into any one of the many forms in 
which shellac reaches the public. To be in a position effectively to 
control this chain of processes in the interests of the industry (which 
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