No. 4.] THE GYPSY MOTH. 413 



A considerable tract of infested land in Maiden and a 

 smaller tract in Medford had been burned over, but there 

 were still greater tracts in both cities which were neces- 

 sarily left unburned, partly because of the wet weather, but 

 mainly because the work of the caterpillar season was upon 

 as, and it was absolutely necessary that this work should be 

 done in time. It was stated in the committee's report of 

 1897 that the moths were spreading in the woodlands in the 

 central part of the infested region, and that the caterpillars 

 were being carried out therefrom on vehicles, persons and 

 horses into territory in the outer towns that had been pre- 

 viously cleared of the moth. The increased danger of such 

 distribution of the caterpillars, resulting from summer 

 travel on the new roads, boulevards and trolley-car lines 

 extending into or through these central infested woodlands, 

 has been pointed out in previous reports. To check this 

 spread, now that the eggs were hatching, it was necessary 

 to destroy the caterpillars. 



The evil results, due to the lapse of the spring burning, 

 were soon seen in the vast number of caterpillars which ap- 

 peared in the badly infested central woodlands, where the 

 work of burning and spraying with oil had not been finished. 

 Could this burning have been done, millions of caterpillars 

 would have been destroyed in embryo which later hatched 

 from the eggs deposited among the dead leaves on the 

 ground and swarmed up the trees. A large part of the 

 work which afterwards became necessary would have been 

 avoided, and the spread of the caterpillars from these cen- 

 tral localities to outer regions already cleared, which 

 occurred during the summer, would have been sooner 

 stopped. The eggs on the trees in these regions had been 

 destroyed during the fall and winter work ; and, had it been 

 possible to supplement this with the burning, thus destroy- 

 ing also the eggs on the ground, extermination in these 

 central tracts would have been advanced a year over what 

 we were able to do under actual conditions. Fifty men, 

 who otherwise might have been used in exterminating the 

 moth from other towns, were necessarily kept in Medford 

 all summer employed in killing hosts of caterpillars which 

 would never have existed had the appropriation been made 



