DANGER OF SPREAD OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL, MOTHS. 11 



and this enormous expenditure the gipsy moth and the brown-tail 

 moth are steadily spreading in New England and great damage is 

 experienced from them yearly. Extermination is entirely out of 

 the question, and all these expenditures must go on indefinitely at 

 a probably increasing rate, unless some natural check by means of 

 parasites can be brought about. 



In addition to the great destructiveness of these pests to orchards 

 and forests, their establishment in any suburban residential district 

 means an enormous depreciation in property values, as is now illus- 

 trated about the city of Boston, and very notably lessens the attrac- 

 tiveness of coast or mountain summer resorts. The north shore 

 towns of Massachusetts and lower Maine resorts have already felt this 

 influence, and for such regions as the Catskills or Adirondacks the 

 establishment of these pests would be most disastrous, inasmuch as 

 control over such extended forested mountains is practically impos- 

 sible. 



When it is realized that these two pests have been widely distributed, 

 on imported nursery stock, in 22 States during the years of 1909 and 

 1910, and are now coming in on imported stock from France and 

 Belgium, the danger to the whole country is fully apparent, and this 

 danger applies to every orchard and to every owner of private grounds 

 and also to our entire forest domain. The tax from these pests, should 

 they gain foothold throughout the country, as measured by the existing 

 cost in New England, is almost beyond estimate. 



EFFECT OF THE BROWN-TAIL MOTH ON HEALTH. 



In addition to the great monetary loss, the brown-tail moth exercises 

 a very deleterious effect on health. The hairs which cover the 

 caterpillars of this moth are strongly nettling, and not only are they 

 so from accidental contact with a caterpillar which may fall on 

 clothes, face, neck, or hands from an infested tree, but also from the 

 myriads of hairs which are shed by these caterpillars when they trans- 

 form to the chrysalis state. The latter fall and find lodgment on 

 clothing, or collect on the face, neck, or hands, and frequently cause 

 very disagreeable and extensive nettling, the effects of which may last 

 for months. Breathed into the lungs they may cause inflammation 

 and become productive of tuberculosis. The brown-tail rash is well 

 known throughout the regions infested in New England and thou- 

 sands have suffered from it. All of the assistants who have been 

 connected with the Government work with these pests in the New 

 England States have been seriously poisoned. Two of them have had 

 to give up their work and go to the Southwest to attempt to recover 

 from pulmonary troubles superinduced by the irritating hairs of the 

 brown-tail moth, and the death of one man employed on the work was 

 due to severe internal poisoning contracted in field work against larvae. 



453 



