INVESTIGATING FOREST INSECTS* 



BY DR. L. O. HOWARD 



CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY 



news about forest insect investigation is, on the whole, very good, 

 but there is one bad piece of news, and that is that the Southern pine 

 people are going to suffer a lot of damage during the summer in the 

 South. We have been trying to stir the people up, and we have told them 

 what to do this winter. Many of them are going to do it, but not all of them. 

 That is the only bad piece of news. The rest of the news is very good. 



The timber owners of the Northwest, with the co-operation of the Forest 

 Service and our own Bureau are doing a lot of administratively experimental 

 work in the way of destroying threatened invasions of the bark beetles in 

 that region, as well as in other parts of the country. The forest insect service 

 of the Bureau of Entomology has studied the question for years, and has 

 elaborate plans which it hopes to put into effect if we can only get the co- 

 operation of all parties interested. 



I should say that another very good item of news is that a new Governor 

 has been elected in the State of New Hampshire. One of his predecessors, 

 I will not mention his name; in fact, I have forgotten it was hardly as 

 enlightened a man on the subject of forestry and other questions as the present 

 incumbent of the office, and when the gypsy moth got across the State border 

 into New York, I called on the new Governor and found him in his store. I 

 told him who I was and told him of the harmful effects of this gypsy moth. 

 I said I would like to talk with him a little, and perhaps he would like to 

 talk with me and get my views as to how to spend the State appropriation. 

 He said, "Sure, Doctor, you may, but before you begin I want to tell you 

 about myself. WTien I was a boy, I was living with an old aunt on a farm. 

 Boylike, I thought I knew the whole thing, and so I thought I would give my 

 aunt advice as to how to run her farm. The old lady listened to me with 

 perfect courtesy, and then went and done just as she darned pleased." I took 

 it in proper spirit, but I do not think I would be greeted that way by the 

 present Governor. 



By the way, that former Governor appointed a man in charge of the work 

 who had crude ideas. It was stated in the newspapers that this man had a 

 queer idea in regard to the brown tail moth, which was that if ail the cities 

 and towns in the State of New Hampshire should shut off their lights about 

 the time the brown tail moth started to fly about, the light of the moon would 

 attract them and they would fly so high that they would die from exhaustion. 

 The present Governor has discharged that man and has appointed a sound man. 



There has been some good news about the southern gypsy moth situation 

 during the last year. Of course, you are all familiar with our attempts to 

 import the European and Asiatic parasites of this creature, and then depend 



165 



