CHAPTER XXXVII 

 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FOREST AND SHADE TREES 



Since the attention of the American people has been called 

 to the need of preserving and caring for the forests of our land, 

 and the government has established forest reservations in all 

 those states still containing extensive wooded areas, the study 

 of the insect pests of forest trees has made considerable prog- 

 ress. Although in European countries, especially Germany, 

 the study of forest insects has been the most notable part of 

 the economic entomological work, it has not been so in America. 

 But forest preservation is a much older science in Europe than 

 with us, where, indeed, it is a very recent thing. 



The insect enemies of forest trees are many, and often very 

 serious in their ravages. Especially in the great pine forests 

 are the insects a constant menace, and too often a menace 

 realized. Fire is the only other forest enemy as dangerous as 

 the insects. And the danger of fire, because less insidious and 

 difficult to appreciate, is being much more rapidly lessened by 

 vigilant care and effective methods of prevention than is the 

 less obvious but more widespread and continuous danger 

 from insect attack. 



Forest entomologists estimate the annual forest loss from 

 insect pests at one hundred million dollars. Yet the injuries 

 to shade and ornamental trees are likely to have, in the eyes of 

 most of us, an importance that outweighs that of the forest 

 losses. No money value can satisfactorily be assigned to a row 

 of stately elms along a street in town or village, nor to a 

 single well-placed, splendid old oak in a dooryard. We shall 

 give, therefore, special attention in this brief chapter to the 

 insect enemies of shade trees and to the means of fighting them. 

 This is the more fitting, also, as forest insects must be controlled 

 rather by general forestry methods and the work of specially 



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