A CITY'S TREE WORK 



WHAT a city or a town may 

 do in caring for its shade 

 trees, in fighting such de- 

 structive pests as the brown 

 tail moth and the gypsy moth and the 

 elm leaf beetle in developing municipal 

 forests in its parks and wood lots is 

 indicated by the successful efforts of 

 Fitchburg, Mass., where the work of 

 the Board of Park Commissioners, in 

 these efforts, has been particularly suc- 

 cessful. The report of the work done 

 by the commission during last year has 

 been issued and it tells in detail what 

 was done. 



\Vm. "W. Colton, who had charge of 

 the fight against the gypsy and the 

 brown tail moth, tells how the cam- 

 paign was waged and his plan of 

 operations may be found of service by 

 a number of other New England mu- 

 nicipalities afflicted with the pests. Re- 

 garding the attack on the gypsy moth, 

 he says : 



THE GYPSY MOTH 



''In the annual fall cleaning of egg 

 clusters, no attempt was made to keep 

 track of the number of nests found, 

 there being such an increase over 

 previous years. The infestation has 

 spread to such an extent that nearly 

 every property in the city has more or 

 less of them. Very few are exempt. 

 "While last winter's scout showed an 

 increase in the number of nests, the 

 work done up to December 1 shows 

 that, while the general distribution has 

 not decreased any, in fact has increased 

 in woodlands, the number of nests 

 found has decreased by at least one- 

 third. This is due in part to the work 

 carried on during the spring and sum- 

 mer in cleaning all badly infested places, 

 of old trees, closing cavities in the re- 

 maining ones, and removing other 

 hiding places. Another reason for the 

 decrease is due to the increasing amount 

 of spraying carried on during the 

 spring and summer, both by this de- 

 partment and private parties. 



"One more item enters into this 

 cause of the decrease also, that is, the 

 introduction of several parasites. Sev- 

 eral colonies of one species were in- 

 troduced and others have made their 

 appearance here from colonies intro- 

 duced east of us. These little fellows 

 have made themselves apparent in 

 numerous places, so much so that, in 

 one or two cases the Gypsies have been 



OLD METHOD OF SPRAYING FOR GYPSY AND BRONVN- 

 TAIL^MOTHS AT FITCHBURG ,'_ MASS. 



almost entirely wiped out. Let us hope 

 that the good work will continue as in 

 these friends we have our greatest 

 hopes of controlling the Gypsies of the 

 forests. 



"It would seem from results the past 

 year and from reports from the State 

 Office, of work in various sections of 

 the State, that the problem of con- 

 trolling the gypsy moth was solved, in 

 so far as it applies to the residential 

 sections of towns and cities. This has 

 been effected by cleaning out superflu- 

 ous and useless trees and caring for 

 the remaining good ones by spraying 

 and treating the nests. 



"The woodland problem is yet to be 



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