5 2 



THE FORESTER. 



March, 



In Christiania a Norweigan Forest So- 

 ciety, which is to be the central force, was 

 formed this winter. A fund was started. 

 Every day the society obtained new mem- 

 bers, who were to assist the yearly contri- 

 bution. This money is to be divided all 

 over the country, and the Forest Society 



will stir up interest in the cause by speak- 

 ing, writing, offering prizes and in con- 

 tributing towards local societies. A fund 

 was also started in Bergen, which soon 

 amounted to 30,000 Kroner ($8,040). 

 VICTOR E. NELSON, Consul, 



Bergen, March 18, 1899. 



Insect Damage to Spruce Timber in Maine and 



New Hampshire. 



Investigations of flaine Lumberman, Covering a Period of Nearly Three Years. 



While on an extended timber explora- 

 tion in northern New Hampshire and Ver- 

 mont in the summer of 1897 the writer 

 met with a good deal of dead Spruce 

 which had been killed by beetles. The 

 trouble as first encountered was not severe 

 that is to say not much timber was dead 

 in any one place but in the course of the 

 season it was found that in the aggregate 

 a large amount had been killed and that 

 the beetles were at work over a very large 

 territory. It was also ascertained that in 

 previous years great damage had been suf- 

 fered in the same general region. 



Brief note of a few cases of depreda- 

 tion known to have occurred in our Spruce 

 woods may be of interest to readers of 

 THE FORESTER. Old lumbermen tell of 

 a great loss of Spruce timber in northern 

 Vermont and New Hampshire, extending 

 into neighboring lands in Canada, which 

 occurred some thirty years ago. The 

 drives of the Connecticut are said to have 

 been made up for some years thereafter 

 largely of dead timber. The same region 

 suffered again between ten and fifteen 

 years ago. On some considerable areas 

 the greater part of the Spruce died. Here 

 again timely cutting served to save a por- 

 tion of the dead timber. 



In Maine several cases of very thorough- 

 going destruction have been known. Be- 

 ginning about fifteen years ago a township 

 on the Androscoggin, which, at the time, 

 was called the best Spruce tract on the 



river, had a large part of its value destroyed 

 in the course of three or four years. No 

 attempt was made to save the dead timber. 

 It stood there till it rotted down. The 

 ground is now covered with dense thickets 



O 



of Fir and other young growth. On the 

 Allegash river in northern Maine there are 

 several adjacent townships which about 

 1883 were greatly damaged. In some 

 places ninety per cent, of the Spruce is 

 said to have been killed in fact, all the 

 grown timber. In this last case the cause 

 of the destruction is known, for specimens 

 of bark beetles collected at the time re- 

 semble at least, if they are not identical 

 with, those with which we now have to 

 deal. In connection with the other cases 

 there is, so far as I have ascertained, no 

 similar record. We can only judge of 

 the cause from the effects and the circum- 

 stances. 



The beetle now at work in our timber 

 has been identified as Dendroctonus 

 polygraphus rujipennis. It does its 

 damage by boring in the cambium and 

 soft inner bark. The adult beetle is about 

 as big as an apple seed; one sex is black, 

 the other bronze in color. The beetles 

 when moving would appear to swarm 

 somewhat after the manner of bees, for a 

 tree that is infected at all almost always 

 has them in great numbers; indeed in one 

 case a colony was found just beginning its 

 attack, hundreds upon one tree, on the out- 

 side of the bark or just boring their way in. 





