STATE POMOLOGICAIv SOCIETY. II5 



Spraying. 



The caterpillars are readily killed by arsenical sprays. This 

 remedy is most effective when applied as soon as the leaves 

 develop in the spring. Of course where the winter nests have 

 been destroyed there will be no need of this remedy and it is 

 much easier to kill about two hundred caterpillars enclosed in a 

 nest than to wait until they are scattered over the tree. 



State Legislation. 



Every state needs a statute enabling authorities to treat as 

 common nuisances neglected property which is infested by dan- 

 gerous fungous diseases or insect pests ; and state appropriations 

 should be sufficient to control conditions which are of more than 

 local importance. 



THE GYPSY MOTH : A FOREWORD. 



The gypsy moth has not yet been found in Alaine. The 

 entrance of this pest, however, is probably only a matter of time. 

 Unlike the brown-tail moth, the female gypsy moth is weak- 

 w^inged and is thus unable to deposit eggs far from the cocoon 

 from which she emerges. It is due to this in part that this moth 

 has not yet found its way here, for it has been in Eastern Massa- 

 chusetts for thirty-six years and its ravages for the past sixteen 

 years are well known. 



In a district badly infested by the caterpillars of the gypsy 

 moth no garden vegetables except the onion is safe ; flowers and 

 grass are eaten, and practically all fruit and forest trees are 

 defoliated, pines and other coniferous trees dying as the result 

 of a single stripping and deciduous trees not being able to v.ith- 

 stand a three years' attack. 



There is no such simple and comparatively inexpensive means 

 of combating the gypsy moths as with the brown-tail moth, for 

 they do not hang their colonies in plain sight all winter, but pass 

 this season in the less conspicuous egg stage, the egg clusters 

 being hidden in any crevice the infested area offers. These 

 caterpillars are more resistant to poison sprays than those of the 

 brown-tail moth and the problem is in many ways more difficult. 

 It is the wise man who looks ahead and an additional argument 

 for clearing: out the sfrowths which are alreadv overrun with 



