1907.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT- -No. 73. 105 



to-day proves that, if citizens work together in co-operation with the 

 city work on the trees in streets and parks, the moth nuisance in Maiden 

 can be handled. At one time I was inclined to doubt if this could be 

 done, but our efforts in my neighborhood have led me to think differ- 

 ently. As to brown-tail moths, I have heard of but few cases of rash 

 this year. I think the city work in Maiden has been well done. 

 AUG. l, 1906. 



C. E. MANN, MALDEN. 



During the period from about June 1 to the middle of July, 1904, 

 the section in Maiden in the vicinity of Hawthorne and Dexter streets 

 and Woodland Road was the center of a very active colony of gypsy 

 moths, although the trees of all residents in that locality had been care- 

 fully cleaned, and were banded and sprayed. The fact that it was sur- 

 rounded on two sides by open lots on which there was a heavy growth 

 of oak and walnut trees, and that one of these lots had received no 

 attention from the time the State gypsy moth work had been abandoned, 

 led to the reinfesting of all the trees in the neighborhood. The small 

 caterpillars, as soon as hatched, were blown by the wind over the trees 

 which had been cleaned, and as time went on and the foliage was stripped 

 from the trees in the open wood lots, the full-grown caterpillars 

 swarmed to the grounds where the work of cleaning had been done. As. 

 a result, I took from the fourteen trees on my own premises and from the 

 stone work and piazza of my house an average of about one and one- 

 half pecks of caterpillars daily through a period covering five or six 

 weeks. These were brushed from below the bands on the trees and else- 

 where into some receptacle and then burned, the funeral pyre making 

 a mound of ashes something like a foot high and two feet in diameter. 



My neighbor, Judge Bruce, came home from a yachting trip one night 

 in the early part of July, and was surprised to find it impossible to 

 walk up to the piazza of his house without crushing dozens of cater- 

 pillars on his steps. It became necessary to place a " dead line " of 

 bodlime completely around Judge Bruce's house and his doorsteps, to 

 prevent the caterpillars from taking entire possession. I also had a 

 dead line of the same nature around my own house; but notwithstand- 

 ing these precaiitions it was necessary for a long time to get out my 

 garden hose every morning and wash the caterpillars from the wood- 

 work on the upper part of the piazza and the sides of the house. 



The work that was done at that time greatly lessened the number of 

 caterpillars one year ago, and during the present summer careful work 

 in cleaning the trees has protected the foliage. One of the open lots 

 referred to has never been cleaned by the owner (although the center 

 of the colony) since the State work was abandoned until last spring, 

 when employees of the city cleaned the trees and cut away the under- 

 brush, but from lack of time were unable to burn over the ground, the 

 consequence being that the foliage on this lot is about half devoured, 



