27(5 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



with them, coming across from our neighbor's, Mrs. CUfford's, and 

 heading straight for our yard. They had stripped her trees, but 

 our trees at that time were only partially eaten. 



(Signed) Mary A. Belcher. 



Feb. 13, 1893. 



Copy of Statement of Mr. J. P. Dill, 33 Otis Street, Medford, Mass. 

 In the summer of 1889, while living on Park Street, Medford, 

 we were literally overrun with the gypsy-moth caterpillars. We 

 had four large apple trees in our yard, which, although old, were 

 very productive. The caterpillars first appeared on the trees in 

 May and were at their worst in July, when they had got their 

 growth. They ate all the leaves off the trees until it seemed as 

 if fire had run through them. The trees finally became as leaf- 

 less as in midwinter. The caterpillars began apparently by 

 perforating the leaves and finally ate them all up. After eating 

 the apple-tree leaves they attacked a Bartlett pear tree and com- 

 pletely stripped it of its leaves. We got no fruit from either the 

 pear tree or the apple trees that year. The apple trees, indeed, we 

 cut down later in the season, because there were holes in them, 

 and we knew the caterpillars could never be cleaned out, and con- 

 sequently did not want to suffer every year from such a pest. 

 That summer we could have got the caterpillars out of the holes 

 in the trees by pecks. After the caterpillars ate all the leaves off 

 the trees they went down into the grass, where they swarmed. 

 When the plague was tlie worst that summer, I do not exaggerate 

 when I say that there was not a place on the outside of the house 

 where you could put your hand without touching caterpillars. 

 They crawled all over the roof and upon the fence and plank 

 walks. We crushed them under foot on the walks. We went as 

 little as possible out of the side door, which was on the side of the 

 house next to the apple trees, because the caterpillars clustered 

 so thickly on that side of the house. The front door was not 

 quite so bad. We always tapped the screen doors when we 

 opened them, and the monstrous great creatures would fall down, 

 but in a minute or two would crawl up the side of the house 

 again. When the caterpillars were the thickest on the trees we 

 could plainly hear the noise of their nibbling at night, when all 

 was still. It sounded like pattering of very fine raindrops. If 

 we walked under the trees we got nothing less than a shower bath 

 of caterpillars. We had a hammock hung between the trees that 

 summer, but we could not use it at all. The caterpillars spun 

 down from the trees by hundreds, even when they were of a large 

 size. We had tarred paper around the trees, but they crawled up 



