244 EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN IN FORESTRY 



our own country. It infests and kills young conifers 

 in newly formed plantations, especially Scots pine. 

 Traps of various kinds (it is unnecessary to detail them 

 here) are made use of to attract and capture this 

 insect, and these traps require to be set in position, 

 and also to be visited at intervals, in order to collect 

 and kill the insects attracted to them. The larch 

 saw-fly is another pest which can be attacked with 

 success at a certain stage in its life-history. 



The depredations of birds such as black game, and 

 animals such as deer, etc., can be circumvented by 

 either tarring the terminal shoots or whitewashing the 

 terminal buds of conifers ; or, as is done in Germany, 

 by fixing a small metal clip to the terminal shoot which 

 pricks the deer's nose when bending down to feed on 

 it. All these, and other operations, are carried out by 

 women and girls in Germany and elsewhere on the 

 Continent, and the work is done cheaply. 



The present would appear to be an excellent oppor- 

 tunity for considering whether a commencement cannot 

 be made in this direction in this country. Forestry is 

 ^n expensive business with us. To some extent we 

 make it expensive for ourselves, and then are unable 

 to understand why we cannot compete with the 

 foreigner. We preserve our rabbits, which eat off 

 year after year all the young naturally germinated 

 seedlings, get into the plantations and destroy 

 numbers of the young plants planted out at con- 

 siderable expense, or wound them by gnawing the 

 bark, with the result that disease gets in ; and finally 

 necessitates the tremendous expense of netting every 

 acre planted. 



