No. 4.] THE GYPSY MOTH. 215 



this woodland, a great part of it has been gone over and in- 

 spected. It is to be hoped that this work will not be delayed 

 in the spring, and that it may be completed before the eggs 

 hatch. A portion of the appropriation of 1895 has been 

 retained, so that this work and that of killing eggs may be 

 carried on in the winter during favorable weather and continued 

 as soon as the snow melts in the spring. The result of that 

 portion of the inspection which has been completed indicates 

 that the woodland in the infested territory is not as a whole as 

 seriously infested as had been feared. There are, however, 

 three badly infested centres in the woods. One of these, a 

 portion of Middlesex Fells, situated mostly in Medford, is very 

 generally infested. Another, a large tract of woodland in the 

 northern part of Saugus, extends to the borders of the Lynn 

 woods. The third is a tract of woodland and farming land 

 which occupies adjacent parts of Arlington, Lexington and 

 "Woburn. These worst infested forest colonies comprise ap- 

 proximately a thousand acres each. Every effort should be 

 made to prevent their extension and to eradicate them now 

 that they are under control ; for the expense of exterminating 

 the moths from forest land is much greater than that of eradi- 

 cating them from cultivated lands. In the principal centres 

 of infestation in all these three localities most of the moths 

 have been destroyed during the present year; but it will be 

 the work^f years to completely exterminate the moths from 

 these centres. 



In one badly infested locality in Woburn some ten acres of 

 woodland were cut over and the wood burned on the ground 

 (see Plate II.). 



The employment of the large force of men, which became 

 necessary during the summer on account of the increase of 

 caterpillars which the lapse of the spring work had permitted, 

 necessitated the expenditure of a large portion of the appro- 

 priation ; therefore in September one hundred and sixteen 

 men were discharged. One hundred and tifty-two of the most 

 experienced and efficient men were retained. These men con- 

 tinued the work of the inspection of the woods, and this in- 

 spection was extended to the contines of the peripheral towns 

 of the infested territory and beyond in some directions. A 

 colony of the moths having been found in the woods in the 



