464 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



it will be necessary to cut out the underbrush to secure ex- 

 termination. Where this has been done, the reduction in 

 the number of caterpillars has been remarkable. In one 

 colony there were taken in 1897 7,319 caterpillars, and in 

 1898 only 37. In another there were 669 caterpillars taken 

 in 1897 and only 3 in 1898. Most of the colonies in the 

 woods in the western part of Winchester which were for- 

 merly badly infested are to-day either exterminated or in 

 good condition. Where the woods have been cut and the 

 ground burned over, very few if any gypsy moths have been 

 found thereafter. Where the woods have been thinned out 

 and the underbrush cut and burned, the condition is now 

 about the same as in those colonies where all the wood was 

 cut off. In December a tract of woods which had been in- 

 fested for several years, containing nearly 100 acres, was 

 cut over, only a few trees being left to burlap. This greatly 

 reduced the amount of work necessary for the extermination 

 of the moth in this locality. 



Forest Trees killed by the Gypsy Moth. 



The fact that the gypsy moth destroys fruit and shade 

 trees, many kinds of garden crops and forage plants, has 

 long been accepted without question. But it has been 

 regarded by many as hardly credible that it should destroy 

 forest trees, in regions where vegetable food of many kinds 

 is so plentiful and readily accessible as in our New England 

 woods. 



In my report of January, 1897, attention was called to 

 the fact that pines had died of defoliation by the gypsy 

 moth. It was also stated that some which had been quite 

 severely attacked, although they had not been entirely 

 stripped of their foliage, appeared to be dying. The obser- 

 vations of two years since that time have confirmed the 

 belief that in all cases where coniferous trees are wholly or 

 nearly stripped by the gypsy moth, they die. This moth 

 attacks with avidity the pines, spruces and hemlocks. 

 Where it is abundant and has its way it will strip the foliage 

 from these trees, leaving the branches entirely bare. When 

 this occurs, the trees generally die within a short time, 



