10 DANGER OF SPREAD OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 



the unpacking is done, in many nurseries, in the open, in close 

 proximity to growing nursery or ornamental stock, and the pack- 

 ing straw and wrappings are piled about and touching growing or 

 heeled-in trees, so that plenty of oppqrtunity may exist for the 

 moth larvae, in such packing material or otherwise scattered, to 

 find lodgment and opportunity for development. 



There is also, in addition to the difficulties experienced in actual 

 inspection, the very large risk, already indicated, that many ship- 

 ments are not inspected at all. 



The fact that the brown-tail moth or any other pest does not 

 develop immediately in the regions where these infested shipments 

 are opened is no indication that such pests have not been intro- 

 duced and that they will not eventually become established. When 

 in very scanty numbers, they are inconspicuous enough to be easily 

 overlooked for a number of years, as was illustrated in the case 

 of the gipsy moth near Boston, which remained slowly increasing 

 for over 20 years before it came to public notice. The brown-tail 

 moth, brought in on roses, probably from Holland, about 1890, 

 also had become thoroughly established over quite a large area 

 before it was recognized, in 1897, as a new pest. The latter case 

 is all the more instructive because the brown-tail moth was devel- 

 oping in the very region which was then being thoroughly exam- 

 ined every year for the gipsy moth. It may well be possible, there- 

 fore, that either the brown-tail moth or the gipsy moth is now slowly 

 gaming headway at different points in one or more States as a result 

 of the shipments of infested material of 1909 and 1910. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPORTATIONS OF 1909-1911. 



It is scarcely necessary to comment on the tremendous danger 

 which the importations of nursery stock of the last three seasons 

 have brought to this country. The enormous cost of the gipsy 

 moth and the brown-tail moth in New England is now well known. 

 Throughout the infested districts of New England orchards have 

 been completely destroyed and forests largely obliterated, and even 

 where woodlands and parks have been protected at an enormous 

 expense their beauty and value have been vastly lessened. 



Massachusetts has spent millions of dollars in an effort to control 

 these pests, and with their spread to other States the work of con- 

 trol has been taken up in these also. The National Government 

 has been asked to come to the rescue, and is now appropriating 

 $300,000 a year in the mere attempt to check the distribution of 

 these pests along the principal highways. Massachusetts and the 

 other infested New England States are now spending more than 

 a million dollars a year in control work. In spite of these efforts 



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