220 AGRICULTURI) OF MAINE. 



Cities and towns may raise the sums necessary to carry out the 

 provisions of this section in the same manner in which money is raised 

 for other necessary municipal purposes." 



This section points out clearly the duties of the cities and 

 towns also those of private property holders. 



In order to show the thorough work done by some of the 

 towns I will quote from an article that appeared in the "Old 

 York Transcript" in its issue of January i8, 1907. The paper 

 came out with the following headline: — "120,000 brown-tail 



NESTS DESTROYED IN A SINGEE DAY.'' 



"That is York's Record for Saturday when $500 was Dis- 

 tributed Among Boys for Gathering Nests and this is Only a 

 Beginning." (See Plate VII.) 



"Over 120,000 brown-tail moths' nests destroyed in York in 

 a single day ! That means the destruction of probably 30,000,- 

 000 caterpillars that would have hatched out in the spring to do 

 irretrievable damage to the trees of York. 



These startling figures represent what the Improvement 

 Society is doing in York. For the second season it has stepjDed 

 forward and taken the initiatory in instituting a campaign 

 against these destructive pests. 



Through its agent, J. Perley Putman, the society has paid out 

 in the past few days over seven hundred dollars for moths' 

 nests. Saturday was the first day on which payments were 

 made. For several weeks the boys, and in fact many of their 

 elders have been busy gathering nests. 



Saturday beheld the first large invoice of specimens, and 

 during the day the accumulation in the basement of the Realty 

 building at York Village reached the enormous aggregate of 

 120,000. 



Even with a large corps of counters it took the greater part 

 of the day to get through the enormous pile to ascertain the 

 totals, and the record it established probably beats anything 

 previously heard of in this peculiar sort of an industry in the 

 country. 



They were brought to the building in all sorts of conveyances 

 — in paper bundles, sacks, baskets and even wagon loads. At 

 one time there were about thirty boys in line depositing their 

 bundles and patiently waiting their little credit slips which 

 would entitle them to cash payments in the office up stairs. The 



