DESTRUCTION OF SPRUCE FORESTS. 817 



portion of spruce is great to the other timber, I was unable last summer to find one 

 tree in twenty alive, and what few there were not dead showed promise of speedy dis- 

 solution. I was told by men familiar with the county that this state of things existed, 

 in a somewhat modified form, throughout a greater part of the Adirondack region. 

 This dead spruce will, in the course of a year or two, become worthless, commer- 

 cially, through the attacks of the worms; and if the dying out is as general as I sup- 

 pose, the region will be bereft of its timber through natural causes much sooner than 

 if a much larger rate of lumbering than the present was begun. 



D. Sage. 

 Brooklyn, December 7, 1883. 



Similar destruction of spruces in Maine in 1818. — The following letter 

 from Hou. R. H. Gardiner, of Oakwoods, near Gardiner, Me., written 

 to Mr. A. G. Tenney, editor of the Brunswick Telegraph, will corrob- 

 orate the idea that the visitations of bark- beetles are in a degree period- 

 ical: 



Oakwoods, August 27, 1881. 



Dear Sir : You requested in the last number of the Telegraph information about 

 dying spruces, for the purpose of aiding Professor Packard in his investigation of the 

 enemies of the spruce. I can render no aid in the matter, but would remind you of a 

 fact that may be forgotten, that in the year 1818 every spruce tree west of the Penob- 

 scot was killed by an insect. I cannot remember this, but have often heard my father 

 speak of it. From 1833 to 1836 I was interested in the lumber business on the Kenne- 

 bec, and no spruce were ever seen among the rafts of logs, though spruce from the 

 Penobscot was sold in Boston. Now, little else than spruce is cut on the upper waters 

 of the Kennebec, but every spruce tree has grown since 1818. 



I would have written direct to Professor Packard, but thought it probable the fact 

 I speak of was known to him, and I only mention it now to you in case it may have 

 been forgotten. 



Yours, very truly, 



R. H. Gardiner. 



Similar destruction of forests in Germany and in Scandinavia. — Wide- 

 spread devastations in spruce forests have occurred at intervals within 

 the past century in Europe, and this has been generally attributed by 

 entomologists and foresters to the operations of these timber beetles or, 

 more properly, bark -borers. As bearing on this point we quote from an 

 article which appeared in Nature, for October 14, 1880: 



In an article in Danish, entitled " Om Grantorken og Barkbillen," by J. B. Barth, 

 the author, who is one of the first authorities in Norway on questions of forestry and 

 arboriculture generally, explains his reasons for differing from the opinion, commonly 

 received, that the desiccation and ultimate death of the Norwegian spruce (Abies 

 excelsa) are due to the attacks of Tomiciis typographus (Bostrychus iyjwgraphus), which 

 is usually regarded as the most pernicious of all the insect enemies of the Coniferae. 

 Herr Barth does not dispute the fact that this beetle is to be found often in large 

 numbers on trees affected by abnormal drying up, whether still standing or cut down ; 

 but, in his opinion, although disease in the tree may be the cause, it is not the result 

 of the presence of the Tomicus, which he believes to have absolutely no effect on the 

 coudition of the bark. According to this view the numerous agents employed in 

 Germany and elsewhere to eradicate this beetle have no result but waste of labor 

 and money, the only remedy against the drying up of the bark being a more scien- 

 tific mode of clearing forests, in which the trees often perish either through over- 

 crowding, or, more frequently, through reckless felling by which cold blasts are 

 5 ENT 52 



