21 



Valuations of 1904 taken as basis. — Wherever valuations of real and 

 personal pi'operty are referred to in the law for the suppression of 

 the gipsy and brown-tail moth the valuations of 1904 are meant. 



Willful resistance or obstruction. — Willful resistance to or obstruction 

 of any agent of the Commonwealth or of an}^ city or town, while 

 lawfully engaged in the execution of the purposes of the moth- 

 suppression law, is forbidden under penalty. 



Under this law, Mr, A. H. Kirkland, a ver}- well equipped man, was 

 appointed superintendent, organized an efl'ective force, and during the 

 seasons of 1905 and 1906 has done excellent work. The experiences 

 of these two years have shown certain defects in the law, which it is 

 hoped will be remedied at the coming session of the State legislature. 



WHAT OTHER STATES HOPE TO DO. 



The comparatively recent spread of the gips}^ moth into the States 

 of New Hampshii-e, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maine, as indi- 

 cated in an earlier paragraph of this bulletin, has created great public 

 interest in these States, and at the coming sessions of the legislatures 

 efforts will be made in each State to secure the passage of a law based 

 upon the Massachusetts State law summarized a})ove. In the mean- 

 time the State of Rhode Island has expended a certain amount of 

 money appropriated by the legislature last winter, and the State of 

 Connecticut has used certain funds at the disposal of the Director of 

 the State agricultural experiment station. In New Hampshire and 

 Maine no State work has yet been done. 



WHAT THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT IS DOING. 



Congress at its last session appropriated, as elsewhere stated, the 

 sum of $82,500 to be expended in an effort to prevent the further 

 spread of the gipsy moth and the brown-tail moth. This money became 

 available July 1, 1906. so that it was impossible to perfect the organ- 

 ization of the work in time to attempt anj^ extended measures against 

 the caterpillars this season. Mr. D. M. Rogers, formerl}^ Mr. Kirk- 

 land's first assistant, was appointed special agent of the Bureau of 

 Entomology in charge of the field work, a force of inspectors and 

 laborers was organized, and work was begun about the middle of July. 



After looking over the whole field and discussing the question at 

 length with Messrs. Kirkland and Rogers, the writer concluded that 

 since it seems obvious that nearl}^ all of the recent spread of the gipsy 

 moth has taken place by means of vehicles coming from the interior 

 of the most thickly infested regions, the most effective manner of pre- 

 venting further extensive spread would be to clean up the main trav- 

 eled roads in the most thickly infested portions of the old gipsy-moth 



