Controlling the Tussoc\ Moth 



ing the evening hours. After 9 a. m. 3 

 thermal activity usually made flying 

 dangerous or wind velocities became 

 too high for satisfactory application. 

 The ground crews worked with high 

 efficiency; they could fill spray tanks 

 usually in 4 to 5 minutes or less. 



Work hours of the crews were those 

 required to meet the job. They slept 

 when they could and caught up on 

 sleep when there was no flying weather 

 or no spray. The first morning weather 

 reports were made from field stations 

 at 2:30 a. m. If the weather report 

 was clear for flying, liaison men at the 

 airstrips were called to notify the rep- 

 resentatives of the flying contractors. 

 Checkers were called and they hit for 

 the hills to lay out their glass plates 

 on areas designated the previous eve- 

 ning. Theirs was a tough job of moun- 

 tain climbing. Much of the area had 

 no roads and could be reached only 

 by foot through heavy forests, down 

 timber, and undergrowth. They had no 

 means of communicating with the 

 spray planes, so after putting out their 

 plates they waited until they were sure 

 flying had stopped for the day; then 

 they retraced their route of travel, 

 picked up the plates, and came in to 

 headquarters. There the plates were 

 examined for spray deposition and 

 were washed and packed for the next 

 flying period. The washing job was 

 hard and hazardous: The spray par- 

 ticles adhered tenaciously to the plates, 

 and highly volatile xylene had to be 

 used for washing fluid. No accidents 

 occurred. 



When flying was over for the day, 

 the pilots finished their coverage maps, 

 which were delivered to the liaison 

 men and sent in to headquarters, where 

 the area covered was transferred to a 

 large daily progress map. This task was 

 completed each day, regardless of time 

 requirements. Among other things the 

 map provided for an over-all check on 

 acreage covered and spray used. This 

 detail was highly important in limiting 

 orders for additional insecticide toward 

 the close of the project. Several thou- 

 sand dollars in freight and insecticide 



441 



costs were thus saved. The periodic 

 vouchering of payments to contractors 

 was based on this control. 



Unloading of insecticide tank cars 

 was done whenever cars were spotted 

 on the railroad siding. If cars were 

 spotted at night, the contractors were 

 notified and unloading of tank cars and 

 transfer of insecticide to the airfields by 

 the ground crews proceeded until 

 planes and stand-by tank trailers were 

 filled. 



A continuous cumulative record was 

 maintained by individual tank-car 

 numbers of the date of shipments from 

 St. Louis, Michigan, and Chicago of 

 deliveries at Moscow and, as far as 

 possible, of the daily location and prog- 

 ress of tank cars en route. When any 

 stranding of cars occurred, the traffic 

 managers were called to break the jam. 

 Even though the railroads put the tank 

 cars under red-tag manifest, it was 

 not possible to maintain complete en 

 route schedules from the point of origin 

 of shipments to Moscow. This resulted 

 in some lost flying time because of no 

 spray, but most of the lost time was 

 due to faster spraying coverage during 

 good flying weather than was allowed 

 as a safe estimate in the basic planning. 



A close daily financial control was 

 maintained throughout the spraying 

 operations. There were several special 

 reasons for this, aside from just good 

 financial management of a large, short- 

 period job. These were : ( 1 ) The proj- 

 ect was planned on a coverage of 350,- 

 000 acres. It was apparent soon after 

 the spraying was started from the pre- 

 control survey data that the infested 

 area would approach 400,000 acres. 

 (2) There were about 14,000 acres in 

 Oregon which should be sprayed if 

 funds could be stretched to cover the 

 cost. ( 3 ) The amount of contributions 

 from small-timberland owners was un- 

 certain. (4) An isolated outbreak on 

 about 6,000 acres, discovered during 

 the course of the operations, needed to 

 be covered. Incomplete coverage of 

 the Idaho outbreak might threaten the 

 success of the entire operation. 



The project aroused widespread 



