April, '12] SHADE TREE PEST DISCUSSION 179 



pruning, etc.^ The experience has been, in eastern Massachusetts, 

 in spraying for the elm leaf beetle, that if the work is clone as soon as 

 there is foliage enough to hold the poison in good shape, and if the 

 poison is used at the rate of ten pounds to the hundred gallons, one 

 spraying is sufficient. That is the way the trees have been treated in 

 Arlington, and no serious injury by beetles has resulted. 



Glenn W. Herrick: I should like to say that this was the first 

 year the elm trees had been treated. They were in bad shape, and 

 we tried to do a good job and went over them twice, with a little less 

 than five pounds of arsenate of lead to fifty gallons of water. 



H. T. Fernald: Mr. President, I would be very glad to give a 

 confirmation of the condition in which the trees of eastern Massa- 

 chusetts are found at this time, if such were necessary, but Mr. Burgess 

 has not overdrawn it in any way. I think, however, that there may 

 be one point to add. In western Massachusetts, speaking particularly 

 of the town of which I am a resident, we have neither the gypsy moth, 

 the brown tail moth nor the elm bark beetle, and yet, within the last 

 three or four years, we have lost perhaps fifty elm trees which were 

 from two to three feet in diameter at the bottom. This seems to call 

 for an additional factor besides those enumerated by Mr. Burgess. 

 The trees have been very carefully examined by plant pathologists 

 and entomologists, several of whom have been available for this exam- 

 ination, and the conclusion has been arrived at that the death of at 

 least a part of the large elms through Massachusetts was due not to 

 insects or to disease, but to a series of rather remarkable climatic 

 conditions. Apparently, the winter conditions were such for a year 

 or two that large numbers of the smaller rootlets of these trees, which 

 had not suffered for many years, were absolutely destroyed, and the 

 trees finally went through what might be termed, perhaps, "a lingering 

 death." The elm leaf beetle was not a factor in particular, for, though 

 present, the trees were thoroughly sprayed and well taken care of, 

 and I think that the weather may have been one of the factors in 

 eastern Massachusetts, masked or concealed by the evident additional 

 work of the insects present. 



Z, P. Metcalf: Mr. Chairman, in Raleigh we had two magnificent 



1 Since returning from Washington, the writer has obtained considerable data on 

 the cost of spraying shade trees with different kinds of outfits. This information 

 shows that by using a high pressure machine and a sohd stream city shade trees 

 can be sprayed for about $.20 each. There are many factors which have to be 

 considered in figurmg the cost of .spraying, and as space in this issue will not permit 

 a .statement of details, it is hoped that it will be possible to prepare a paper later on 

 giving the information secured. 



