236 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Against these facts, Avhose accuracy has never been called 

 in question, must be placed the conditions as they exist 

 to-day. Instead of minor damage here and there in resi- 

 dential districts, we have reports of the destruction of shade 

 trees, orchards, gardens and shrubbery over a large part of 

 the entire infested area. Not only are growing crops and 

 trees devastated, but houses are invaded and sidewalks 

 swarmed with the disgusting insects. Tenants have often 

 forsaken their homes because of the plague, and in the 

 worst infested sections real estate values have been notably 

 depreciated. 



The weak woodland colonies once thoroughly under con- 

 trol have increased by leaps and bounds, leaving large 

 forested sections as bare at mid-simimer as in winter, and 

 breedino; enormous numbers of insects to infest still larger 

 areas. From the Belmont line to the Saugus River, a dis- 

 tance of ten miles, there was last summer an almost contin- 

 uous succession of colonies. 



Professor Marlatt, after seeing the shocking condition 

 prevailing in the infested district in July, writes : " The 

 conditions found in 1902 scarcely prepared the writer for 

 the status shown in the course of the investigations just 

 completed. During the years 1903-1904 the gypsy moth 

 had evidently made extraordinary progress, and defoliation 

 or stripping was found which the writer had never seen 

 before in the gypsy moth region, and undoubtedly many 

 times greater than in the Avorst of the earlier years of gypsy 

 moth damage." 



In the foregoing pages we have endeavored to present 

 fairly the present conditions of the moth-infested regions. 

 While property owners have suffered severely, and call in 

 no uncertain tones for relief from the scourge which they 

 are unable to combat successfully, we face also a serious 

 menace to our agricultural interests, which would follow the 

 unrestricted spread of the moth throughout the State. 



In view of the alarming condition above reported, the 

 imminent danger of the further spread of the moth, the 

 great damage now being wrought to shade, fruit and forest 

 trees in the infested territory, and the large sums expended 



