1907.] THE GYPSY MOTH IN CONNECTICUT. I4I 



people to be on the lookout for the insect, all of which goes to 

 show that he was familiar with the. species and knew of its 

 dangerous character. 



A few years later, garden fruit trees in the immediate vicin- 

 ity were defoliated each year by caterpillars. 



STATE WORK IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



Thus twenty years passed before the species had multiplied 

 sufficiently to attract more than local attention, but it had be- 

 come firmly established, and in 1890 a bill was introduced into 

 the state legislature and passed, providing for the appointment 

 of a commission to control the pest, and making a liberal appro- 

 priation for the work. Doubtless you are all more or less 

 familiar with the work of the Gypsy Moth Commission in 

 Massachusetts. From 1890, when the work was first started 

 — though reorganized in 1891 — it was continued through 

 several changes in the personnel of the Commission, until 1900, 

 when the legislature refused to make further appropriations, 

 and the work was discontinued. At this time the insect was 

 well under control ; the infested area, though much larger than 

 at first suspected, had been reduced, and a great many isolated 

 colonies had been wiped out. But, like all state commissions, 

 this one had its critics and its enemies as well as its friends, 

 and the unfavorable criticism had the effect of stopping the 

 whole work instead of changing or improving any portion of 

 it. Had the personnel of the force been changed and the work 

 kept up, Massachusetts would be in far better shape today. 

 Surely the insect might have been kept within the limits of the 

 359 square miles which it occupied in 1900, when the work 

 ceased. But for five years it was allowed to spread untram- 

 meled except for the efforts of private individuals to control 

 it on their own places, until in 1905 it had spread over 2,224 

 square miles in Massachusetts, and over the coast region of 

 New Hampshire into Maine. The region about Providence, 

 R. I., had become infested, and a small colony started at Ston- 

 ington in this State. 



Early in 1905, the Massachusetts legislature passed a new 

 law, and made provision for the resumption of gypsy moth 

 work, backed up by a substantial appropriation, and Mr. A. H. 

 Kirkland was appointed superintendent by Governor Douglass. 



