No. 4.] THE GYPSY MOTH. 463 



Maiden. 



Maiden is, with the exception of Medford, the most gen- 

 erally infested town in the gypsy moth region. Owing to 

 the delay in making the appropriation for 1898, a large part 

 of the worst-infested woodland could not he burned over. 

 Where burning was done, very few caterpillars appeared, 

 and most of those were taken under the burlaps ; where the 

 burning was not done, the caterpillars appeared in countless 

 swarms. In one locality they stripped the foliage from the 

 sprout land, and in migrating covered the sides of a house 

 as high as the window frames. Here they were destroyed 

 by the cyclone burner. They were so numerous in some 

 localities on Baker's Hill that two or three burlaps had to 

 be placed on each tree, and visits were frequently made to 

 materially reduce their numbers. 



The enormous increase of the gypsy moth in Maiden this 

 year gives fresh proof of its fecundity and destructiveness. 

 It seems to spring up like a mushroom in the night, when- 

 ever the hand of its destroyer is stayed. It was found 

 necessary to concentrate on this town a whole division of 

 the force, and later another division was brought in to 

 assist. Every man that could be spared from other work 

 was set to killing caterpillars in Maiden, and yet it was 

 some time before the numbers of the pest began to be 

 noticeably lessened. Fire was used on Baker's Hill in the 

 fall, trees were trimmed up and all the undergrowth cut and 

 burned. Every egg-cluster that could be found was de- 

 stroyed. To-day three-fourths of Maiden is in better con- 

 dition than ever before, and the other fourth can be put in 

 as good condition before spring, if the means are provided 

 to continue the work. 



Winchester. 

 On most of the infested estates in residential Winchester 

 very few gypsy moths were taken in 1898. The caterpillars 

 had been most numerous in the south-eastern corner of the 

 town near the Middlesex Fells Reservation. A few Win- 

 chester colonies in the reservation appear to have been 

 exterminated, and in nearly all the other colonies only a few 

 caterpillars were found in 1898. In most of these colonies 



