222 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



A trouble affeetino; the chestnut near Grange Camp, Va., was investigated 

 by Messrs. Wm. H. Ashmead and F. H. Chittenden, of the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology, in June, 1893. They found that a vast majority of the second 

 growth chestnut, some of it as much as 18 inches in diameter, was dead or 

 seriously affected and dying. After a careful examination of many dead and 

 dying trees, and of two living ones scarcely showing the evidence of disease, 

 it was made quite evident that the primary cause of the destruction of the 

 trees was the two-lined chestnut borer. 



The extensive dying of chestnut trees in the southern Appalachians waB 

 verified, in 1904, by observations of Mr. W. F. Fiske, of the Bureau of 

 Entomology, during a special investigation of the subject. In his report he 

 states: ''In the region immediately south of Tryon, N. C, (which appears 

 to be tj'pical of a very large region extending in an irregular strip from 

 somewhere in the central portion of North Carolina and Georgia) practically 

 all of the chestnut had died so long before as to have disappeared except 

 for the old stumps, a few logs, and an occasional struggling sprout. In a 

 region north of Tryon the chestnut was in a perfectly healthy condition, but 

 in the immediate vicinity of Tryon the trees were then dying by the whole- 

 sale, old and young alike." My own observations in the southern and middle 

 Appalachians during the past ten years have convinced me that there has 

 been a widespread destruction of the chestnut of that region, and that the 

 chinquapin has also suffered. 



In the Journal of Science and Arts^ 1846, it is stated that the chinquapin 

 died in the period from June to September, in the vicinity of Riceboro, Ga., 

 in 1825 and was still dying in 1845. I am informed by an old resident of 

 Virginia that the once abundant chinquapin of southern Virginia and north- 

 ern North Carolina disappeared quite suddenly about fifty years ago. 



CHESTNUT INSECTS 



In addition to these significant historical records, I may say that the 

 insects of the chestnut forest trees have been the subject of general investi- 

 gation by the West Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station and the Bureau 

 of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture, since about 1893. The 

 published and unpublished records of these investigations show that 354 

 species of insects were found to inhabit the chestnut trees. We also find that 

 other observers have recorded 164 species. By eliminating all duplicate 

 records, the total is 472. 



All of these insects are not destructive, but among those that are, we 

 have found one species that is perhaps as important as all of the others 

 combined. It has, therefore, been the subject of more investigation and con- 

 sequently we know more about its habits and the methods of controlling it. 

 It is the so-called two-lined chestnut borer, a small, elongate beetle which 

 flies in May and June and deposits its eggs on the bark of living and dying 

 chestnut, oak, beech, and ironwood in the Southern, Middle and Eastern 

 States. The elongate, slender larvae mine in the inner bark and outer wood 

 in such a manner as to girdle the trees. When they have attained their full 



