INCREASING ON NEGLECTED ESTATES. 31 



During the summer of which I speak (1889) my currant bushes 

 were also attacked. They were covered with caterpillars, hut I 

 saved them by sprinkling them twice a day with a solution of soap- 

 suds and kerosene. (J. C. Clark.) 



The Moth inulti])l{es on Neglected Lands. 

 Though there were man}'- people who did their utmost to 

 destroy the moths, there were others who made little efibrt 

 in that direction. There was waste land which no one cared 

 for, and in such places the moth increased apace, until the 

 advances of the ravenous larvfe could no longer be stayed by 

 individual effort : — 



I think, if every one had taken hold and fought the moths in the 

 beginning, they might have been stamped out right in the place 

 where they originated. The trouble was that some people would 

 not do anything. Some people on the street were tenants only, 

 and therefore took little or no interest in the condition of their 

 yards. I remember the case of one house which was vacant dur- 

 ing one summer. The caterpillars in that yard were a sight. 

 Another neighbor, not owning his house, and not intending to 

 stay there, was overrun in a like manner, (William Taylor.) 



Other residents make similar statements : — 



A house near by being unoccupied, the caterpillars in the gar- 

 den there had full swing, there being no one to fight them. This 

 yard was a recruiting place for the whole neighborhood. No 

 sooner would we get our own yard comparatively free than a lot 

 more would crawl around on the fence from the other yard. 

 (Mrs. Plummer.) 



One difficulty in fighting the caterpillars used to be that now 

 and then a neighbor would not do anything to keep them down on 

 his own land. As a consequence, the caterpillars, after stripping 

 this man's trees and getting about three-quarters grown, would 

 migrate into the other yards and be even more destructive, their 

 voracity increasing with their size. (J. N. French.) 



The only way I suffered was because my neighbors were negli- 

 gent. The caterpillars blew over on to my trees. ... I saw them 

 coming from my neighbor's premises on a concrete walk extending 

 along where my fruit trees grow. The walk was literally covered 

 with these worms when they were about the size of your little 

 finger, so that it appeared like a carpet. (J. O. Goodwin, l)efore 

 the legislative committee on Agriculture, Feb. 27, 1894.) 



