INSECT DAMAGING SPRUCE TREES IN MAINE 



731 



our actions. Conservation of our pri- 

 vately owned forest resources will never 

 become effective until there is a present 

 or prospective profit in practicing con- 

 servation. Our National forest re- 

 serves, now under legislative control 

 and administration, should be supple- 

 mented by the several State govern- 

 ments, as only the Nation or the State 

 can afford to hold forest lands in res- 



ervation. The cost of protection and 

 reforestation being borne by all the peo- 

 ple, forest lands now held by the State 

 or the Nation should be withdrawn 

 from sale, protected against fire and 

 reserved for future use, following the 

 wise providence of the rulers of Egypt, 

 who in years of plenty stored up their 

 corn against the time, of scarcity or 

 famine. 



INSECT DAMAGING SPRUCE TREES IN MAINE 



BY PROF. JOHN M. BRISCOE 



OURING the past summer consid- insect again began to attract general 



erable attention has been di- attention, first in Pennsylvania, and 



rected to an insect which is dam- later in New York and Canada. In 



aging spruce and fir trees in this State. 1910 it was much worse in the centres 



Inquiries and specimens of the insect of infestation, and in 1911 it had 



have been received both by the Experi- spread to the coast of Maine, where its 



ment Station and the Forestry Depart- work is now attracting much attention, 



ment of the University of Maine. The During the past summer the pest was 



specimens were identified as the larvae widely distributed over the State, re- 



of the spruce bud-moth (Tortrix fumi- ports having been received from local- 



ferana) which injures spruce and fir, ities in Aroostook, Penobscot, Han- 



and sometimes also hemlock and larch, cock, and Piscataquis counties, and it 



This insect feeds on the buds and young very probably occurs in others also, 



leaves of spruce and fir chiefly, causing The insect which is responsible for 



a brown and withered appearance of the 

 infested trees. 



About one hundred years ago the 



the destruction is a small caterpillar 

 about three-quarters of an inch in 

 length when full grown. Its head is 



spruce trees west of the Penobscot blackish, the body ranging from pale 

 River and along the coast of Maine brown to a rich umber brown, diffused 

 were badly damaged and many of them with green, each joint with several con- 

 killed by the attack of an insect be- 

 lieved to be this same species. Some 

 thirty to thirty-five years ago another 

 outbreak of the spruce bud-moth oc- 

 rurred, lasting four or five years. Dur- 



spicuous whitish warts, each with a 

 dark centre from which a single hair 

 arises. The miller or moth is about 

 one-half inch in length, measuring 

 when spread out nearly an inch from 



ing this attack also many of the spruces tip to tip of wing. The legs, body and 



and firs along the coast were injured, hind wings are a glistening umber 



and many of these trees while not killed brown, the fore wings have a ground 



outright by the insects, were, owing to color of bluish gray, and when freshly 



[heir weakened condition, left as an emerged marked with several conspic- 



;asy prey to the spruce bark beetles, uous blotches and dasho* of dark 



Dr. A. S. Packard, in a paper written brown to almost black. The eggs are 



at that time, comments on the depress- pale green, scale-like, flat beneath and 



ing and disfigured aspect of the country slightly convex above; and are laid 



about Casco Bay, owing to the depre- soon after emergence of the moth. The 



dations of this insect. It was not, how- insect passes the winter on the trees 



ever, till the spring of 1909 that this as very small caterpillars which, as soon 



