DANGER OF SPREAD OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 11 
and this enormous expenditure the gipsy moth and the brown-tail 
moth are steadily spreading in New England and great damage is 
experienced from them yearly. Extermination is entirely out of 
the question, and all these expenditures must go on indefinitely at 
a probably increasing rate, unless some natural check by means of 
parasites can be brought about. 
In addition to the great destructiveness of these pests to orchards 
and forests, their establishment in any suburban residential district 
means an enormous depreciation in property values, as is now illus- 
trated about the city of Boston, and very notably lessens the attrac- 
tiveness of coast or mountain summer resorts. The north shore 
towns of Massachusetts and lower Maine resorts have already felt this 
influence, and for such regions as the Catskills or Adirondacks the 
establishment of these pests would be most disastrous, inasmuch as 
control over such extended forested mountains is practically impos- 
sible. 
When itis realized that these two pests have been widely distributed, 
on imported nursery stock, in 22 States during the years of 1909 and 
1910, and are now coming in on imported stock from France and 
Belgium, the danger to the whole country is fully apparent, and this 
danger applies to every orchard and to every owner of private grounds 
and also to our entire forest domain. The tax from these pests, should 
they gain foothold throughout the country, as measured by the existing 
cost in New England, is almost beyond estimate. 
EFFECT OF THE BROWN-TAIL MOTH ON HEALTH. 
Jn addition to the great monetary loss, the brown-tail moth exercises 
a very deleterious effect on health. The hairs which cover the 
caterpillars of this moth are strongly nettling, and not only are they 
so from accidental contact with a caterpillar which may fall on 
clothes, face, neck, or hands from an infested tree, but also from the 
myriads of hairs which are shed by these caterpillars when they trans- 
form to the chrysalis state. The latter fall and find lodgment on 
clothing, or collect on the face, neck, or hands, and frequently cause 
very disagreeable and extensive nettling, the effects of which may last 
for months. Breathed into the lungs they may cause inflammation 
and become productive of tuberculosis. The brown-tail rash is well 
known throughout the regions infested in New England and thou- 
sands have suffered from it. All of the assistants who have been 
connected with the Government work with these pests in. the New 
England States have been seriously poisoned. Two of them have had 
to give up their work and go to the Southwest to attempt to recover 
from pulmonary troubles superinduced by the irritating hairs of the 
brown-tail moth, and the death of one man employed on the work was 
due to severe internal poisoning contracted in field work against larvee. 
453 
