16 SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 



Second, because to the cooperation of the North Carolina Forestry Associa- 

 tion, with those interested, was due the formation of the Mecklenburg Pine 

 Beetle Association and the Gaston Forestry Association, which were followed 

 by the formation of similar organizations in other Southern States. 



Third, because these two associations formed for fighting the beetle are not 

 merely names, but have actually performed the work for which they were 

 organized. 



I look forward with confidence to a time within the near future when we 

 can say that the people of North Carolina have established systematic insect 

 control for the benefit of every pine timber owner in the State. 



I do not think it necessary for me to dwell on the seriousness of the situa- 

 tion in regard to the Southern pine beetle. There is not a man here who 

 has not seen the appalling amount of dead pine. This dead pine is gone. 

 We can not bring it to life again, but we can, and I am sure we will, try to 

 stop the dying of further large quantities of timber. Since it is possible for 

 us to make efforts in this direction, it seems to me that we should look on 

 further loss from this cause as absolutely unnecessary, and hold no one but 

 ourselves to blame for it. 



The Southern pine beetle has existed, to our knowledge, in the South for 

 over forty years. It is only at long intervals, however, that it increases to 

 such numbers as to cause widespread depredations such as the great invasion 

 of 1890-'93, which destroyed a large percentage of the pine in the Virginias 

 and was only stopped by unusual climatic conditions. The warning sign of 

 a depredation is the increase in number and size of the groups of dying pine. 

 This warning has been only too plainly manifest the last two years. We 

 have no reason to anticipate that any natural factor will come to our aid. 

 We should be more than foolish if we based our hopes of relief on any such 

 intervention of Providence. In other words, gentlemen, it is distinctly and 

 plainly up to us. 



In order that you may understand the reasons for the methods of control 

 we advise, I am going to run through the life history of this beetle, beginning 

 with the early summer, as outlined by Dr. A. D. Hopkins, who is the authority 

 on forest insects of the Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology. 



The beetles attack and leave a tree in about thirty days or even more 

 quickly. Three or four generations in the North and four or five in the South 

 develop during the season. In other words, they may be increased thousands 

 of times from their original numbers during the year. They fly during the 

 night, and sometimes in the day, and alight on the upper trunk of a living 

 pine. (Observation has shown that they seldom go as far down as the first 

 eight or ten feet of the butt cut, depending, of course, on the size of the tree.) 

 When they alight on a tree they bore though the bark to the wood, but they 

 do not bore into the wood. In the inner bark and marked on the surface of 

 the wood they make those winding galleries with which you are all familiar. 

 These galleries, crossing and recrossing, girdle the tree many times, thus 

 killing it. The eggs are laid along these galleries, hatch into little grubs, 

 which feed for a short time on the inner bark, and then go into the outer 

 bark where they change into beetles with wings. The beetles bore out of the 

 bark to the light, fly away and attack other trees. They can fly for three or 

 four miles or more, may go in any direction, and, therefore, are a direct men- 

 ace to all pine within three or four miles of a center of infestation. 



