No. 4.] GYPSY MOTH. 237 



by municipalities and individuals in fighting the pest, with 

 the certainty of immense increase of damage and expense 

 with the further spread of the insect, your committee believes 

 that the time has come when some concerted and vigorous 

 action should be taken, looking to the control of the pest. 



The question of extermination has been solved through 

 the suspension of the work and the unchecked increase and 

 spread of the insect. We believe that extermination was 

 possible at the time the work ceased, granted that a})pro- 

 priations were made seasonably and in sufficient amount to 

 do the work planned for, over a period of years when the 

 infestation had become so scattered and inconsiderable as to 

 be of no immediate damage to vegetation. The best that 

 can be hoped for now is control, the reducing of the insect 

 to a condition where no visible harm results from it, and the 

 holding of it within its present limits, with perhaps the 

 occasional extermination of isolated colonies in the outlying 

 towns. The expense of this work will be considerable at 

 first, — greater, if properly done, than the expense of the 

 exterminative work formerly carried on, but gradually de- 

 creasing in amount until a moderate yearly appropriation 

 will suffice. In other words, the gypsy moth has become a 

 perpetual tax upon the Commonwealth or the nation, and 

 the tax will be paid, whether approj^riation is made or not. 



There is no question but that this insect should be dealt 

 with b}' the national government. By its unchecked s})read 

 during the last five years it has reached a point where it is 

 not only a damage to Massachusetts, but also a distinct 

 menace to neio-hborino; States. With the millions of cater- 

 pillars to be found about railroad stations in the infested 

 district during the summer months, it is only a question of 

 time when some, of them will find lodgment, in sufficient 

 numbers to reproduce their kind, on freight or passenger 

 cars, and be carried hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles, 

 perhaps into the White Mountains, perhaps to Texas or 

 Oregon, there to lay eggs and start a new centre of infes- 

 tation. Precedent for government action is established by 

 the appropriation made for fighting the cotton boll weevil, 

 which attacks but a single plant, though a most important 



