Ninth keport of the State Entomologist 423 



aid, endeavoring to exterminate, has not yet entered witliin our 

 borders. I refer to the Gypsy Moth, Ocneria dispar (Linn.), which was 

 accidentally introduced into Massachusetts about the year 1869, by a 

 gentleman interested in the rearing of silk-worms. 



When first brought to notice in 1889 by Professor Feruald, of the 

 Massachusetts State Agricultural College, as a dangerous public enemy, 

 it was believed to be confined to a single locality in the town of Med- 

 ford, less than a s<juare mile in area. It had at that time, according 

 to Professor Fernald, " multiplied to such an extent as to cause the 

 entire destruction of the fruit crop and also to defoliate the shade trees 

 in the infested region." The imperative necessity of its arrest, and 

 the probability that it might be exterminated if proper means were 

 promptlj" brought to bear upon it, urged by Professor Fernald, led to 

 an appropriation by the Massachusetts State legislature, in March, 1890, 

 of $25,000, for the accomplishment of the desired end, and the 

 appointment by the Governor of three commissioners to conduct the 

 work. An additional appropriation of an equal amount was made 

 later in the j'ear. 



The commissioners, in entering upon their labors, found that the 

 moth, instead of being confined to the narrow limits above named, had 

 already invaded various parts of a territory four miles long by sixteen 

 broad. Active measures were carried on by the commissioners during 

 the season of 1890, yet, at its close, thej^ reported the insect in seven 

 different towns over an area of fifty square miles. Many acres of 

 brush had been burned over, and 70,000 trees had been sprayed with 

 Paris green and water, in which about two tons of the Paris green 

 were used.* 



The following year, in lieu of the commissioners, the work was 

 placed in the hands of the State Board of Agriculture, and by them 

 intrusted to a Gypsy Moth Committee of three carefully selected per- 

 sons. The magnitude of the work becoming apparent, another appro- 

 priation was made by the legislature in June of 1891, of |50,000 — 

 making the aggregate of appropriations thus far, $100,000. 



It appeals, from a special report on the subject recently made by the 

 State Board of Agri -ulture, that their committee have conducted their 

 work during the past year [i. e., in 1891), with energy, with judgment, 

 and with all the success that could have been expected. Some of the 

 measures used by them for the control of the insect, wore the follow- 

 ing: spraying trees with Paris green in water; spraying the caterpillars 

 with insecticides that kill by contact; spraying infested stone walls 

 with kerosene and firing it; gathering the egg-clusters and burning 



*Up to the present thne, three and a half tons of Paris green has been used. 



