550 NEW JERSEY AGRICULTUEAL COLLEGE 



expended by the State, and a very large sum in addition had been 

 paid by individual owners in sections which the State forces had not 

 yet reached. Between 1896 and 1900, when tlie last appropriation 

 was made, $674,000 additional was provided, the sums reaching 

 $200,000 in 1898 and 1899. With the appropriation for 1900 the 

 work ended, and the statement of Mr. E. H. Forbush, field director, 

 before the Association of Economic Entomologists, in the summer 

 of 1899, gave a comprehensive review of what had been accomplished 

 up to that time. February 1st, 1900, is the official date when the 

 work was discontinued, and since then the State has done nothing, 

 while Nature has moved on, slowly but surely, according to her own 

 methods. 



The status of the matter in Massachusetts at the present time is, 

 therefore, that the State has expended $1,174,000, while the work of 

 attempted extermination was carried on; that there has been ex- 

 pended since that time, by municipalities, not less than $60,000 annu- 

 ally, or $240,000, and by individuals $100,000 annually, or nearly 

 half a million. Since the stoppage of the work in 1900 the insect has 

 not only regained all its old ground, but has spread over additional 

 territory, double in area that which it held at first. The money 

 already spent is absolutely wasted because the work was discontinued 

 when success was almost at hand ! 



My first visit to the gypsy moth district was in 1893, and my im- 

 pressions at that time were recorded in a note to Dr. C. H. Fernald, 

 the entomologist of the committee carrying on the work. This note 

 is published in the report of 1896, on page xxxvi. of the appendix. 

 My next visit was in the winter of 1897 (January), and my report on 

 that visit, made to the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, was 

 never published. 



The insect has again become so threatening and has again caused 

 so much actual injury that the Legislature of Massachusetts has 

 passed another law, providing for a fight against it on new lines and 

 carrying an appropriation of $330,000, with an added obligation upon 

 municipalities of practically twice as much, bringing the total con- 

 templated expenditures during two years next en.suing up to the sum 

 of over $900,000. 



It needs no apology for presenting this record here if there is the 

 least danger of introducing so injurious and. expensive an insect into 

 New Jersey, and my visit to the infested district in August has con- 

 vinced me that while the danger is not at present imminent, it may 



