STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 11/ 



infested districts. It is greatly to be hoped that some effort to 

 systematically control the spread of these pests may be instituted 

 to the end that property owners may be spared the annual visita- 

 tion of the caterpillar scourge." * 



THE BROWN-TAIL MOTH IX MAINE. 

 By Hon. A. W. Oilman, Commissioner of Agriculture. 



The legislature of 1903 passed an act from which the follow- 

 ing is an extract: "If any person in the State suspects the 

 presence of San Jose scale or other injurious insects or diseases 

 preying upon trees, shrubs or vines in his possession or within 

 his knowledge, he shall forthwith notify the commissioner of 

 agriculture to that effect, and said commissioner shall cause the 

 said trees, shrubs or vines to be inspected by a competent ento- 

 mologist who shall forthwith make a report of the results of his 

 inspection and file the same with the commissioner at Augusta. 

 If dangerous insects or injurious diseases are found by the ento- 

 mologist the commissioner shall publish the report of the same 

 and see that the best known treatment is applied to such trees, 

 shrubs or vines for the destruction of the insects or diseases with 

 which the same may be infested." 



On March 21, 1904, a letter was received from Mr. Clarence 

 M. Weed, state nursery inspector of New Hampshire, stating 

 that one of his deputies had found that the brown-tail moth had 

 passed over the river at Kittery and was present in two small 

 pear orchards in that town. I immediately wrote to the Experi- 

 ment Station at Orono, asking that a competent entomologist be 

 sent to investigate the matter. Early in April, Miss Edith M. 

 Patch, entomologist for the Maine Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, visited Kittery and vicinity and reported that the small 

 pear orchards and scattered pear trees in the village were badly 

 infested with winter nests of the brown-tail moth. These nests 

 were also to be found, to some extent, on cultivated and wild 

 cherry trees in the vicinity, elms along the street and apple trees. 

 The infested district, as far as she was able to judge, could be 

 enclosed in an area of one-half mile square. 



« Mass. Crop Repoil, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 32 and 40. 



