The Key to Protection 



413 



the adoption of such good forest man- 

 agement that insects cannot develop to 

 injurious proportions? 



Will adequate surveys so completely 

 cover all susceptible forest types that 

 insect epidemics will be caught in their 

 incipiency and quickly suppressed by 

 well-timed control measures? 



Or will human nature be much the 

 same tomorrow as today and continue 

 to take a chance on the unseen ( though 

 somewhat predictable) future and 

 wait for the worst to happen? 



Probably some of each will prevail. 

 Our detection system will become bet- 

 ter, good management will come to 

 pass on more and more acreage, and 

 there will be plenty of opportunity for 

 the direct-control enthusiast. It now 

 seems inevitable that we are going to 

 enter an era of cheaper and more effec- 

 tive direct control that would have 

 seemed utter fantasy a few years ago. 



Mechanical devices and versatile 

 power units are taking the hand labor 

 out of bark beetle control, and mar- 

 velous insecticides are spread quickly 

 over thousands of acres by airplane at 

 costs that are a mere fraction an acre 

 of the values at stake. Certainly for 

 today the possibilities in chemical and 

 mechanical methods of control look far 

 brighter than the possibilities for silvi- 

 cultural methods of prevention. In the 

 meantime, it seems to us that more and 



more reliance must be placed on these 

 direct measures of control and more 

 effort must go into their improvement. 

 At the same time, our detection sur- 

 veys must be greatly strengthened and 

 our research into biological and silvi- 

 cultural methods of preventing damage 

 must be pursued diligently for a more 

 propitious future. 



F. G. GRAIGHEAD has been in charge 

 of investigations of forest insects, in 

 the Bureau of Entomology and Plant 

 Quarantine of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, since 1923. 

 He has been with the Department since 

 1912, except for 3 years spent in Can- 

 ada working on forest-insect problems 

 with the Dominion Entomological 

 Branch. He is a native of Pennsyl- 

 vania. Dr. Craighead is a graduate of 

 Pennsylvania State College, and holds 

 advanced degrees from George Wash- 

 ington University. 



JOHN M. MILLER is a native of Cali- 

 fornia and has been associated with 

 forestry and forest-insect problems in a 

 number of Western States since his 

 graduation from Stanford University 

 in 1908. He has wide experience in 

 forest-insect control and has published 

 numerous papers on research and con- 

 trol phases of his specialty. He has been 

 with the Department of Agriculture 

 since 1907. 



THE KEY TO PROTECTION 



S. A. ROHWER 



Until research developed informa- 

 tion on pests of our forests and devised 

 means of combating them, there was 

 little of immediate practical value that 

 could be gained from knowing where 

 the pests occurred. Fortunately we now 

 know procedures which can be used to 

 control many of the more common and 

 most destructive pests. By using these 

 methods we can prevent the develop- 

 ment of outbreaks that would cause de- 

 struction and losses over wide areas. 



The key to any effort to protect our 

 forests from these or any of the numer- 

 ous insects and diseases that attack 

 them is a knowledge of where the pest 

 occurs and how abundant and aggres- 

 sive it is. This is fundamental. It is 

 comparable with criminal and military 

 intelligence. All types of programs to 

 combat common enemies employ the 

 principle of knowledge of its where- 

 abouts and strength. To combat suc- 

 cessfully the fbrest pests we must know 



