1354 Department of Agriculture 



established in the State has caused special care to bo exercised 

 to see that they are not brought here. The nests of brown-tail 

 niotlis brought into the State principally in seedling stock from 

 France, gipsy moth eggs from Belgium, and the pine rust from 

 Germany in such large numbers, together with a hundred or more 

 shipments from the Is^ew England States where both insect pests 

 are established, show how infestations might have become estab- 

 lished at hundreds of widely separated localities in the State, but 

 for the work of the inspectors. These two pests have already 

 cost the N^ew England States over $7,000,000 in control meas- 

 ures alone, not estimating damages. Our efforts have not been 

 confined to inspection of incoming nursery stock but the entire 

 eastern State boundary line has been scouted for years. All high- 

 ways leading from the infested sections of l^ew England into this 

 State have been carefully inspected over a wide area. All trees 

 from eastern Massachusetts planted in the State in the past ten 

 years that could bo fomid have been examined with the result 

 that it is believed that not a colony of either gipsy or browm-tail 

 moth is in the borders of the State at this time. Twenty thousand 

 colored plates of these pests have been distributed principally in 

 the eastern part of New York, so it is believed several thousand 

 persons are watchful and that any of them would report to the 

 Department of Agriculture if suspicious specimens were dis- 

 covered to the end that the colony might be at once destroyed. 

 It will cost less to keep them out than to control them after they 

 once get a foothold in our orchards or forests. 



Several years ago the Department of Agriculture, in order to 

 avoid tli(^ burning of orchard trees infested with San Jose scale 

 and the damage caused by the then widespread use of oils, jn-dimil- 

 gatcd a formula of lime-sulfur salt. The good results which have 

 fnlliiwed the scientific preparation of the lime-sulfur solution 

 and its general use at the present time as an insecticide as 

 well as a fungicide have piMvc(l the wisdom of the adoption of 

 a specific that could be iinide and a])plied chietly by the oi'chardisfs 

 themselves. JManufacturers and dealers in insecticides and fungi- 

 cides for the use of fi-uit growers are required to secure from the 

 Department of Agriculture a license to do business in the State 

 and also to label the conunodity plainly showing the percentage 



