290 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



years previous through the importation of European elms. 

 Since that date the beetle has gradually spread southward to 

 North Carolina, westward over the Alleghany Mountains into 

 West Virginia, and northward to the New England States, 

 causing severe damage, particularly to city elms. 



Occurrence in Massachusetts. 



The elm-leaf beetle appears to have entered Massachusetts 

 from the south several years ago, and has gradually spread 

 northward along the Connecticut and Housatonic rivers. A 

 lateral diffusion of the insect is now taking place in the val- 

 leys of the streams contributing to these rivers, and probably 

 along the main lines of our railroads. In Berkshire County 

 severe injury has been caused by the insect at Sheffield and 

 Great Barrinoton. Mr. H. L. Frost informs me that the 

 beetles are fewer in number and the damage much less in 

 extent at Stockbridge and Lenox, although these towns are 

 •more or less infested. The damage to the elms at Spring- 

 field has been previously mentioned. Here the insects were 

 injuriously abundant in 1895, their depredations continuing 

 to the present time. In the same year Dr. L. O. Howard 

 found the beetle abundant at Holyoke and Northampton, and 

 in smaller numbers at Miller's Falls. Prof. C. H. Fernald 

 found it at Amherst in 1895. 



At the present writing the beetle has spread westward 

 along the Westfield River to West Springfield and Westfield, 

 and along the Mill River to Williamsburg, in each of which 

 towns it was locally injurious in 1898. In the present year 

 outbreaks of the insect have developed at Longmeadow and 

 at Chicopee. 



Previous to 1898 eastern Massachusetts escaped damage 

 by the elm-leaf beetle. So far as known to the writer, the 

 only specimens of the insect taken in this region before 1898 

 were the ones found by Prof. F. M. Webster "north of 

 Salem" in 1895, by Frank A. Bates at Winthrop in 1896, 

 and by the writer at Plymouth in the latter year. That the 

 insect has not been seriously injurious in Boston and its older 

 suburbs has been a matter hard to understand, for the many 

 compact plantings of English elms in this region offer ideal 

 conditions for the insect's development, while the numerous 



