21(3 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



north-western part, of Lexington, one of the towns found 

 infested in 1891, search was made of all the woodland sur- 

 rounding it and extending 1 into Bedford and Burlington. In 

 Boston the inspection has been extended south through Rox- 

 bury and West Roxbury to the Dedham line, the plan being to 

 continue the search as far as Milton and Quincy. ]\ T o moths 

 have been found in this inspection, which, however, is not yet 

 completed. 



Results of the Years Work. 



It has been feared from the first that, unless sufficient appro- 

 priations were granted to provide for effective, externii native 

 work each year over the whole area, some favorable season 

 might give the moths a sudden impetus which would cause 

 them to increase beyond control. During the early spring of 

 1895 the meteorological and other conditions for such an in- 

 crease were present. We were obliged to await an appro- 

 priation, while the caterpillars were hatching and growing in 

 the mean time under the most auspicious conditions, and begin- 

 ning to spread over the country. When this hatching and 

 spreading had progressed considerably, the money for the 

 work was appropriated and the task of preventing the 

 spreading and securing the extermination of the moth, which 

 appeared almost hopeless under such circumstances, was 

 again begun. For the first month it seemed as jf it might 

 prove an unequal contest, but as the season advanced and the 

 men made their rounds steadily day by day the numbers of 

 the caterpillars gradually decreased, until at the end of the 

 burlapping season there were no known localities except those 

 already referred to in the woods where the moths had made an 

 increase over that of 1894. The work of the fall in inspect-' 

 ing the woods and destroying egg-clusters has still further 

 reduced the numbers of the moths, and revealed the condition 

 of a great tract of woodland within the infested territory. 

 Before the end of the season the moths were well under con- 

 trol, and at the present time there is in the main a consider- 

 able improvement in the condition of the infested towns over 

 that of the year 1894. This is especially noticeable in Swamp- 

 scott, Lynn, Wakefield, Stoneham, Somerville, Cambridge, 

 Arlington, Winchester, Winthrop, Boston and a portion of 



