li>0 GYPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. [Jan. 



for $200,000, the tax on $1 would be a little less than one-seventeenth 

 of a mill ($0.000^) ; and a man owning taxable property to the value 

 of $5,000 or a farm of that value would have to pay a tax of $0.294, 

 which might be regarded as a premium paid to the State to insure him 

 ;i-_::iinst tin- ravages of the gypsy moth. This is far less than one would 

 have to pay for clearing the moths from a single apple tree. If this tax 

 should be continued for forty years, as long as a man would be likely to 

 have charge of a farm, his premiums for that time would amount in all to 

 $11.76, a much smaller sum than would be required to clear this pest 

 from a small orchard in a single year." 



The property owners in central and western Massachusetts the 

 part of the State not yet infested with the gypsy moth, have such 

 a fear of this pest and desire so strongly to be protected from it, that, 

 as far as I have been able to learn, they are entirely ready to pay their 

 share of such appropriations as are necessary to prevent the insect from 

 spreading beyond its present limits and eventually invading their lands. 



It is undoubtedly generally understood throughout the State that the 

 Legislature of 1899-1900, which closed up the work on the gypsy moth 

 when the extermination of the pest was almost completed, made a most 

 serious mistake. When any Legislature by its action or lack of action 

 on a case shall, through inadvertence or otherwise, bring about a result 

 so disastrous as this, it would seem to thoughtful taxpayers to be the 

 duty of following Legislatures to do everything possible to remedy the 

 disastrous results of acts of that previous Legislature. 



Respectfully submitted, CHARLES H. FKRNALD. 



IMPORTING PAKASITES. 



Tlic ell'ort. to import parasites has l>een carried on as vig- 

 orously as seemed consistent with proper care and scientific ac- 

 curacy. We are irlad to record again our obligation to Dr. L. 

 O. Howard, Chief of the Bureau of Entomology, United States 

 Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., who lias kept 

 constantly in touch with tltis part of our work, and has directed 

 all the necessary operations. Dr. Howard wont abroad again 

 la-f -priiiir to perfect the organi/a tion of the corps of European 

 collectors; and us a result of his efforts wo now have on onr 

 .-faff nearly every ecmiomic entomologist of note in the moth- 

 infested district of KM rope. We also had the benefit last summer 

 of the services of one of ])r. Howard's assistants, "Mr. E. S. G. 

 Tit us, who, with "Mr. "F. IT. "Mosher of this office, had direct 

 charge of the caring for the imported material and the breeding 

 :md disseminating of the parasites. To assist them during the 



heighl of the breeding ^a-on several students from various 



