72 JOURNAL OP ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 3 



ence to boxes imported, names of consignees, number of boxes, names 

 of transportation companies receiving the boxes, and dates. 



By direction of the United States Secretary of the Treasury, Col- 

 lectors of Customs in the eight ports of entry within the state were 

 authorized to give our Department of Agriculture the information 

 required to enable us to locate importations and their destination. By 

 courtesy of the Naval Officer in New York City, where the bulk of 

 importations were cleared, we were permitted to place an agent who 

 copied such portions of every manifest for our use as needed. 



The Department had a dozen trained inspectors available, to whom 

 additional help was given as required. All were placed in sharp com- 

 munication to facilitate inspections and avoid delay and exposure to 

 seedlings. 



Our inspectors were directed to locate and bum at once all nests of 

 brown-tail moths found. No one was permitted to save, handle or 

 give away any specimen nests. Boxes in which nests were actually 

 found were at once burned, together with all moss, packing mate- 

 rials and linings. Subsequent examinations of all cellars and shops 

 where imported stock was handled were made and all trimmings were 

 carefully collected and burned. Early in the month of January we 

 found that wherever infested stock was unpacked in a warm room 

 the larvse would leave their nests and not return as they do in the 

 open. They Avould soon cover themselves with their silken threads 

 wherever they found lodgment. 



To discover and burn all nests required a very careful seedling to 

 seedling inspection, especially with branched or bushy plants. Even 

 the roots needed to be carefully examined for any nest or portion of 

 nests that might have been torn off and dropped into them. The cus- 

 tom of packing seedlings not tied in bundles placed tops and roots in 

 layers caused a distribution of nests through the boxes containing from 

 3,000 to 15,000 seedlings each. All such inspection was comparatively 

 simple, until we learned the habits of the escaped caterpillars, after 

 which an inch to inch inspection was pursued. At this stage, of 

 course, careful fumigation of all stock with hydrocyanic acid gas ap- 

 peared feasible, but to our disappointment we found that the use of a 

 formula of four or five times such strength as is used for San Jose 

 scale, with long time exposure, was ineffective. The young larvae were 

 not all killed. With more time and many more experiments we do not 

 find yet that fumigation can be relied on. All stock from boxes in 

 which nests were found were ordered dipped in miscible oil at portions 

 of 1 of oil to 20 of water. This proved effective, and if a weaker mix- 

 ture would accomplish the desired results we should like to know it. 



