118 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



supervision of the ap^ents of the Bureau. In less than a year the 

 problem was practically solved and the means of protecting the crop 

 was demonstrated. 



WORK AGAINST FOREST INSECTS. 



Previous investigations in work against forest insects have resulted 

 in a thorough knowledge of the life histories and methods of work of 

 the principal forest insects, and have indicated not only that the forest- 

 insect problem is to be classed among the more important problems in 

 connection with the waste of forest resources, but also that this waste 

 can be controlled with economy and success. The Bureau, after 

 obtaining the necessary preliminary results, is now in position to dem- 

 onstrate upon as large a scale as this can be brought about the efficacy 

 of the measures decided upon. It has been shown that the methods 

 recommended may be easily understood and properly applied by 

 owners of timber, by Government forest officials, and by managers of 

 manufacturing enterprises through the proper expenditure of a com- 

 paratively small amount of money and energy. This has been shown 

 in the areas in Colorado in the vicinity of Colorado Springs, Palmer 

 Lake, and Idaho Springs, on the Trinchera estate, in the Las Animas 

 National Forest, in the Wet Mountains section of the San Isabel 

 National Forest, Colorado, and in the Jefferson National Forest, Mon- 

 tana. The evidence gathered from the results of the investigations 

 and control work relating to these seven cases indicates that the proper 

 disposal of a total of some 14,000 trees during a period of four years 

 at a first cost of about S2,000 (an average of 50 cents per tree) has 

 ended depredations which during a preceding period of ten years 

 have caused an average annual death rate of more than 7,000 trees, 

 or a total of 7,000,000 feet board measure, having a stumpage value 

 of $14,000. 



The work carried on in cooperation with private timber owners and 

 forest officials in northwestern Montana, inaugurated last autumn, 

 has yielded most satisfactory results, especially in the fact that the 

 private owners have been made to realize the importance of prompt 

 action to prevent the total destruction of the remaining merchantable 

 timber. This has led to the proper treatment, by cutting and bark- 

 ing or otherwise disposing of between 9,000 and 10,000 beetle-infested 

 trees, by ten or more of the owners. This, it is believed, will be suffi- 

 cient to control the depredations over an area of more than a hundred 

 square miles in wliich the timber has been dying at an alarming rate 

 during the past ten or fifteen years. It will also have a marked effect 

 toward protecting the timber of the adjacent areas of the National 

 Forests, in which similar destruction has been going on. The Depart- 

 ment of the Interior has allotted sufficient funds to take immediate 



