332 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



To carry on the work properly a breeding and infection liouse is needed 

 in which Kght and heat can be well regulated. A good supply of clean 

 dry nests for cold storage is also absolutely necessary. This supply should 

 be large enough to furnish caterpillars for running at least twenty-four 

 disease boxes, a number which ought to yield enough diseased larvae to 

 supply every infested town in the State. To feed such a large number of 

 caterpillars some arrangements should be made for procuring a sufficient 

 quantity of willow and cherry twigs, or for the cultivation of raspberry 

 bushes, which yield tender leaves especially suited to the needs of the very 

 young larvse. Success depends on a large quantity of well-infected 

 material which can be rapidly transported to the field. If this material 

 is quickly and properly planted, there can be no question as to its effec- 

 tiveness in destroying the brov/n-tail caterpillar. 



It was impossible to run the brown-tail fungus through the summer 

 in the disease boxes, on account of the lack of a proper supply of larvse 

 in cold-storage, but the infection was successfully started from diseased 

 webs during the first week in September. 



In the case of the experiments with the gypsy fungus the results were 

 not satisfactory. The larvse did not thrive well in the breeding boxes, 

 because the conditions in the boxes, where warmth and moisture were at 

 an optimum for Entomophthora, were extremely favorable for the develop- 

 ment of wilt, and the caterpillars died from this disease before the fungus 

 could spread. Another factor which makes the propagation of the disease 

 difficult is the apparent low virulence of the species which attacks the 

 gypsy moth. Only one planting was made, at Stony Brook, about the 25th 

 of June. Inspection ten days later resulted in the finding of one dead 

 caterpillar, on a small branch about five feet above the bag in which the 

 diseased larva? had been planted. No other evidence of the fungus could 

 be found. That the g3T)sy fungus will prove as destructive as the brown- 

 tail fungus seems, in view of the negative results so far obtained, to be very 

 doubtful, but there is a possibility that it may get started from some of 

 its numerous resting spores which must be in the field in localities where 

 the fungus was planted, in which case its effectiveness might prove to be 

 greater than our experiments would indicate. 



Quarantine against the Gypsy Moth and thf Brown-tail 



Moth. 

 As a result of a hearing held at Washington, D. C, on Oct. 29, 

 1912, before the Federal Horticultural Board, the Department of 

 Agriculture has established a quarantine against the above-named 

 moths which took effect on and after Nov. 25, 1912. The regula- 

 tions are as follows : — 



