Common Insect Enemies 133 



by airplane is not only effective but very economical. Let's 

 look into the matter a little more thoroughly. 



Homes in the Raw 



With millions of men and women searching frantically 

 for non-existent homes, the housing shortage has developed 

 into perhaps the principal postwar headache. And houses, 

 at least most of them, are built from lumber. We no longer 

 have to be preached to by conservationists to be impressed 

 by the fact that our forests are among our most important 

 natural resources. When you have to pay $80 or more a 

 thousand feet for unseasoned, knotty boards you know that 

 a good tract of timber land is worth more than a good gold 

 mine. You also realize that any destruaion of our timber 

 reserves affects not only the owners of the tracts, but all of us. 



Signs in our forested areas admonish us to "Break your 

 match! Put out your campfire! Help to prevent forest 

 fires!" Forest fires take a terrific toll of forest trees every 

 year, as blackened stumps all over the country testify. And 

 everything we can do to prevent such destruction should be 

 done. But what about the less spectacular but greater de- 

 struction caused by the ravishes of insects? A news item 

 about how Montclair, New Jersey, faces the loss of its more 

 than 4,000 elm trees because of the Dutch elm disease does 

 call our attention to the faa that even mighty trees can fall 

 prey to enemies of insignificant size, and anyone who sees his 

 favorite shade trees dying in the prime of their lives cannot 

 help but feel a little sad. Try to imagine, then, destruction 

 of this type multiplied many thousand fold, for that's what 

 is happening to our forests. 



Among the serious insect pests that are ruining our 



