1908.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT No. 73. 227 



at any time by those especially interested after the enemies are weil 

 established here. Those in charge of the work are justified in their 

 efforts to get the European material at work in the field on American 

 caterpillars as soon and in as great numbers as possible, leaving the 

 more technical or scientific phases of the work to wait for more per- 

 manent appropriations and better facilities. 



The work of collecting and introducing into America the principal 

 enemies of the gypsy and brown-tail moths in most of the badly infested 

 European countries is now well organized, and has already resulted 

 in the liberation of many thousands of these enemies in Massachusetts, 

 and is to be continued for another year at least. In spite of all this, 

 and of the fact that never before has there been made and carried out 

 so successfully such an extensive experiment in introducing nature's 

 forces from a foreign country to help man fight his insect foes, yet to 

 silence all critics it will be necessary to scour all other countries in 

 which these pests are prevalent, to determine if other enemies cannot 

 be found and introduced into America to further aid in this warfare. 

 The few feeble attempts to get such material from Japan, where the 

 gypsy moth is a pest, have resulted in the insects all dying en route. 

 Enemies different from and said to be equally as effective checks to 

 the gypsy moth as those in Europe are known to occur in Japan. To 

 complete this world-renowned and greatest of all attempts to fight one 

 of nature's pests with its own enemies, every possible effort should be 

 made, without regard to expense, to get living material from Japan 

 in sufficient quantities to give it a fair chance to see what it can do 

 towards helping the already established European enemies in checking 

 the gypsy moth in America. Possibly these Japanese enemies may 

 take more kindly to American conditions, and thus render more efficient 

 aid than those from Europe. 



The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is worthy of much praise for 

 the magnificent and costly fight it has made against the gypsy and 

 brown-tail moths during the past fifteen years. Nowhere else in the 

 world has there ever been made such a fight against an insect pest. The 

 million-dollar fight for the extermination of these pests which the State 

 made a few years ago, and unfortunately and unwisely allowed to lapse 

 or cease, has finally resulted in such a widespread distribution of the 

 insects that extermination is no longer seriously considered by those 

 best qualified to judge. This means that the gypsy and brown-tail moths 

 have come to stay, and will gradually extend their domain over more or 

 less of the United States and Canada, taking rank wherever they go 

 among the most destructive of the defoliators of fruit, forest and shade 

 trees. Massachusetts has demonstrated, through the wise administration 

 of its rather stringent but excellent and workable law, that these pests 

 can be checked and their depredations reduced to the minimum by the 

 use of man's devices or so-called " hand methods," at a sum, however, 

 that but few other townships or States could be induced to spend. Now 

 that federal aid has been secured, it is to be hoped that liberal appro- 



