414 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



in time to enable this burning to be done. Had the money 

 been available earlier, so that more thinning out of under- 

 growth could have been done in the badly infested wood- 

 land centres, the work of the burlap season would have 

 been much more effective ; and a vast amount of burlapping 

 work could have been saved had it been possible to do 

 thoroughly the spring cutting. As it was, burlap bands 

 being now the principal means to be relied upon to exter- 

 minate the moth, nearly two million trees had to be bur- 

 lapped. 



Arsenate of lead was also used, as in 1897, as an insecti- 

 cide to check the caterpillars which by lack of prompt ap- 

 propriation were allowed perforce to hatch from the eggs. 

 Only a small amount of effective spraying could be done, 

 because of the almost constant rainy weather which con- 

 tinued during the month when spraying would otherwise 

 have been effective. Where arsenate of lead could be used 

 in suitable weather, its effect on the gypsy moth caterpillars 

 was satisfactory and more fatal than any insecticide hereto- 

 fore used for the gypsy moth work. 



Owing to the aforesaid disadvantages under which the 

 work of the season was conducted, it was found necessary 

 to rely almost entirely on burlapping for the destruction of 

 caterpillars, and the numerous burlaps put on, together with 

 the care used in attending them, are largely responsible for 

 the great improvement in the condition of the infested 

 region which can now be reported. 



The size of the appropriation made it possible for the 

 committee to retain the entire force for the fall work, 

 instead of discharging a large part of the men as soon as 

 the burlap season was over, as had been the case in years 

 past, and to begin immediately the work of burning over 

 the ground. About two hundred acres of the worst-infested 

 territory, mostly woodland, a part of it being in the Mid- 

 dlesex Fells reservation, were burned over with fuel-oil in 

 August and September. The dead leaves, dead wood and 

 other debris were thus destroyed, together with the eggs 

 which were deposited upon or among these materials. At 

 the same time expert men were employed in killing the 

 comparatively few eggs of the moth which still remained 



