MASSACHUSETTS WOODLANDS. 19 



Moth thinnings in many types of woodland offer a permanent 

 solution of the moth problem; they do not call for a heavy annual 

 expenditure. 



In all woodland, thinnings will aid and lessen the cost of other 

 methods of control, even if not in themselves completely solving 

 the problem. A thinned area can be sprayed for a fraction of the 

 cost of the unthinned, and the work is much more effective. The 

 same is true of creosoting, clipping nests, etc. 



In wild woodlands the chief value of which is for the wood they 

 produce, thinning with the aid of parasites and diseases seems to 

 offer the only reasonable solution of the problem. 



However, it must be remembered that moth thinnings are not a 

 cure-all for every phase of the moth problem. It is desirable, and 

 always will be, to grow " non-resistant " species for shade trees and 

 in park, ornamental and protection woodland. Here the other 

 methods must be continued. 



There is a great class of woodland which is so poor that no pos- 

 sible cutting will pay for itself. This includes young sprouts, gray 

 birch growth and areas which contain a large amount of brush, as 

 scrub oak, hawthorn, briars, etc. Moth thinnings are so expensive 

 in these lands that they can hardly be advisable. However, some 

 people have cleaned them off and replanted to pine. Where there 

 is considerable young pine mixed with the other growth on these 

 areas a thinning will pay in future returns from the pine, even 

 though the wood removed will not cover the first cost. 



RESULTS OF MOTH THINNINGS. 



The result of moth thinnings and of natural selection in the 

 case of badly infested woodland will be the elimination of a large 

 part of the oak from our forest growth. This will prove to be a 

 blessing rather than a disaster if pine is substituted. Most of the 

 sprout oak in the moth-infested territory is occupying natural pine 

 land. The soil is poor and. unsuited to the best development of 

 oak, but is excellent for pine. It is thought that originally the 

 land was almost wholly covered with pine. The pine has the ad- 

 vantages of being more valuable, more rapid growing, and generally 

 more satisfactory and productive than the oak in this region. Oak 

 can be left on the richer soils and moister slopes, where it may be 

 able to withstand the ravages of the moths. Generally the oak 

 must be relegated to the position of unimportance which it occupies 

 in European forestry, and the white oak, the poorest of all in this 



