634 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



region ; placards were posted in the post ofTices, and field demonstra- 

 tions were carried on. There was a general awakening as to the 

 danger and active cooperation was aroused not only among the 

 holders of large tracts of timber but by the thousands of small wood- 

 lot owners, and control methods were put into actual practice. An 

 examination made during May, 1{)12, of the districts where the south- 

 ern pine beetle was most prevalent shows without question that the 

 ravages of the southern pine beetle have been effectually checked and 

 possibly completely ended for the time being. This is a somewhat 

 remarkable and very gratifying achievement, but a still more grati- 

 fying result "of this widespread dissemination of information on this 

 subject is tliat the owners of pine in this region seem to have become 

 so familiar with the methods of control that these methods are likely 

 to be a matter of general routine in the management of timber and 

 recognized as a necessity, just as diversity in crops and the fertiliza- 

 tion of agricultural lands are recognized. The actual amount of in- 

 fested pine cut and treated during the past winter can never be defi- 

 nitely determined, but the evidence furnished by the stumps of the 

 trees and by general information from owners of the timber in parts 

 of the South where the damage had been greatest indicate that an 

 enormous amount of infested pine has been cut. A further indica- 

 tion is the fact that so much cordwood has been offered in the open 

 market in many localities as to lower the price much below that of 

 previous years. 



It may be worth while to mention one notable example of successful 

 control at direct expense. This Avas a 90,000-acre tract, partly in 

 South Carolina and partly in North Carolina. On this property 

 there were thousands of dollars' worth of beetle-killed timber, and 

 there was every indication that the damage would be even greater 

 this year. Sixty infested patches of timber, ranging from 3 to 300 

 trees, were cut and burned on the ground during the winter of 1911 

 at a direct cost of $373. Reports from this tract in the spring of 

 1912 indicate that almost no pine is dying. 



SPECIAL RESULTS. 



Among the special results of the w^ork of the year are the successful 

 demonstrations to representatives of timber lands and to some of 

 the State and Federal officials that the control of the Dendroctonus 

 beetles in the pine forests of the West and South is not only possible, 

 but that protection of standing timber from insect damage is just as 

 necessary as protection from forest fires, and that such work is 

 directly in line with profitable business methods. The continued 

 healthy condition of the timber in all of the areas where successful 

 control work was carried on, as mentioned in former reports, serves 

 as the most convincing evidence of the practicability of preventing 

 an enormous waste of forest resources. 



Conclusive results of the demonstration control work of the last 

 fiscal year will not be entirely evident until July of the present year 

 (this report being written on the closing days of June), but pre- 

 liminary reports on the thorough examination that is now being made 

 of the several treated and adjacent untreated areas show not only 

 that the control measures have resulted in a direct saving of timber 

 on the areas treated, but that the results have been so obvious that 



