60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



Mr. Rawson. The eggs are laid probably from the 20th 

 of July to the 1st of September. 



Mr. Fitch. How long before they hatch ? 



Mr. Rawson. They will hatch as soon as the weather 

 gets warm enough the next spring. The first day of May is 

 the earliest time, so far as we have been able to ascertain. 



Mr. Fitch. How long before they go into the chrysalis 

 form ? 



Mr. Raavson. They begin about the 20th of June, and 

 continue from that time until about the 20th of July. They 

 come out in the form of moths in about one month. 



Mr. Fitch. Then we are to look for them from the first 

 of May until the 20th of June as caterpillars? 



Mr. Rawson. Yes, sir. We shall make quite an 

 extended report, which will be published, and which any 

 one can get by going or sending to the State House. This 

 report will explain the work from beginning to end, as far 

 as we have gone. The commission commenced their work 

 the eighteenth day of March, and we met every day from 

 that time until the 1st of August. It required a great deal 

 more work than we expected. 



Secretary Sessions. It seems to me that this question of 

 the gypsy moth is a serious one, and ought not to beclouded 

 by any ridicule that may be cast upon it by interested parties 

 or by those who have no interest in the question. It is a 

 question cither of stamping out this moth or allowing it 

 to spread over the State of Massachusetts and the whole 

 country. The consequence of its spreading over the country 

 will be that every man who has a fruit tree and desires fruit 

 will get it only at the end of a hard contest with the gypsy 

 moth, just as we raise potatoes now at the end of a contest 

 with the potato bug ; only this will be worse than that, 

 because the gypsy moth eats almost anything in the shape 

 of a leaf. 



Now, it may be said that the commissioners have wasted 

 money. I do not doubt that there has been a great deal of 

 money spent that the commissioners, if they had known by 

 experience how to do the work when it was committed to 

 them, would not have spent; but, as the chairman of the 

 commission has said, the work was entirely experimental at 



