REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 247 



dollars, aud instructed the Road Commissioners to protect the 

 shade trees. Without experience or the facilities for prosecuting 

 the work, they made little progress. The residents of the infested 

 and adjacent territory decided to petition the Legislature to assist 

 in controlling aud, if possible, extermiuatiug this destructive pest. 

 The Governor of the State resided in the infested territory, and in 

 his annual message, January, 1890, called the attention of the 

 Legislature to the matter. Petitions from the Selectmen of Med- 

 ford and the adjoining towns, Arlington, Everett, Winchester, 

 Stoneham, and Wakefield, from the city officials of Maiden and 

 Somerville, the State Board of Agriculture, and the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Societ}^, were presented to the Legislature in Jauu- 

 ar}^, 1890. The matter was referred to the Committee on Agri- 

 culture. The Committee ^isited the infested locality and reported 

 that they saw walls of buildings and almost every tree covered 

 with the egg clusters or nests. 



The Legislature of 1890 enacted a law providing for the appoint- 

 ment of a commission to take charge of the work " to provide and 

 carry into execution all possible measures to prevent the spread and 

 secure the extermination of the Ocneria dispar or Gypsy Moth in 

 this Commonwealth." The Legislature appropriated twenty-five 

 thousand dollars, and the Governor appointed a commission con- 

 sisting of three men, all residents of the infested territory. The}- 

 commenced work immediately and killed large quantities of the 

 caterpillars, paying special attention to the trees by the roadsides 

 to prevent their being distributed by passing carriages. The 

 Counnission soon found that the money appropriated would not 

 complete the work over the known infested territory, which was 

 supposed to be about a mile aud a half long and two-thirds of a mile 

 wide, and the Legislature appropriated twenty-five thousand dollars 

 more. The work of spraying was continued as long as the insect 

 continued in the caterpillar state, and afterwards the eggs were 

 destroj^ed. 



In the spring of 1891 the Governor discharged the Commission 

 and the Legislature passed an act placing the work of attempting 

 " to prevent the spreading and to secure the extermination of the 

 Gypsy Moth" in the hands of the State Board of Agriculture, and 

 appropriated fifty thousand dollars to carry on the work. 



The efforts of the Committee the first year were directed to de- 

 stroying as many as possible of the insects where they were liable 



