276 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



these localities ; but during the fall inspection eggs and other evidences 

 of the moth were found at a distance from those formerly infested local- 

 ities. In these places they had evidently been established for some two 

 seasons, and were overlooked during the fall of 1891. The inspection 

 of Marblehead has not yet been completed. 



In Woburn local extermination has cleared most of the localities 

 which were known in 1891 of all forms of the moth. Several colonies 

 have been found during the fall. The same may be said of Wakefield. 



Many of the colonies formerly known in Arlington, Cambridge, Win- 

 chester, Stoneham, Melrose, Lynn, Peabody, Salem, Swampscott, Revere 

 and Chelsea have been destroyed. A few colonies have been extermi- 

 nated in Somerville, Saugus, Winthrop and East Boston. The number 

 of moths in the towns most infested, such as Medford and j\Ialden, has 

 been reduced about ninety per cent, in the past year. In the winter of 

 1891-92 fifty men were employed in these towns in destroying eggs, 

 and, although the eggs had been numerous there, a greater jjart of the 

 area covered by these towns was well cleared during the winter. 

 Could one hundred expert men have been employed the past fall, the 

 work in some portions of these towns might have been carried to the 

 point of extermination. Although such a reduction in numbers has 

 been made, it is quite probable that, if no eggs are destroyed in these 

 towns during the winter, the insects will appear in some portions of 

 them in the spring in about the same numbers as in the spring of 1892. 



Everett, Somerville, Chelsea, Winthrop, Saugus and Belmont are 

 infested in about the order named, and all need immediate attention. 



During the past summer probably less than twenty trees in Massachu- 

 setts have been injured to a perceiDtible degree by the gypsy moth. 

 Although in a few instances many thousand caterpillars were discovered, 

 they were killed in time to save the vegetation in the vicinity. It will 

 be noticed that several small colonies were found during the fall 

 inspection of 1892 which were overlooked during that of December, 

 1891. The latter inspection was undertaken with a view of determining 

 what towns were infested, that the Legislature miglit be informed as to 

 their number and condition. This inspection Avas somewhat hurried, 

 owing to the limited time at our disposal belbre January 1 . When one 

 town was found considerably infested the inspectors went on to the next, 

 leaving the work of a more thorough examination to be done in 1892. 



Progress toivard Extermination. 



A^Tiile this insect is certainly one which is difficult to exterminate, it 

 seems, in the light of our present knowledge, that it can certainly be 



