382 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



colonies in the outer towns had to be done, if the spread of 

 the moth into towns outside the infested region was to be 

 prevented. But, while the work has been so well done in 

 these outer woodland colonies that the moth has l)een ex- 

 terminated from most of them, it has been impossible, with 

 the means at hand, to provide at the same time for the ex- 

 termination of the moth in the colonies in the inner towns. 

 It has been simply a case of choosing the greater of two 

 evils to combat. The dangers of this enforced neglect have 

 been realized, and the steady increase of the moth in the 

 central woodlands has been known, and, as you are aware, 

 has been repeatedly pointed out. 



While some of the colonies in the outer towns were at first 

 much to be feared as centres of moth dissemination, this 

 danger has now been largely eliminated by the success of 

 the work of extermination in those towns. Yet a new 

 dano'er of distribution now overshadows all others. The 

 facilities for the distribution of the moth from the central 

 woodlands have greatly increased within the last six years, 

 or since the work of exterminating the gypsy moth was be- 

 gun. Streets have been cut through many of them, and 

 building begun. The Metropolitan Park Commission has 

 opened driveways and built boulevards, all of which form a 

 network through the Middlesex Fells region ; and people 

 from all the region round-about drive over these roads and 

 boulevards during the summer months, when the caterpillars 

 are spinning down from the trees. Electric car lines have 

 been opened along roads through the woods, connecting the 

 eastern cities with the central towns and cities, one line going 

 as far as Lowell. 



There are now in the woods of these central towns probably 

 one million egg-clusters ; and, if by any delay of the appro- 

 priation for the work of 1897, these egg-clusters are allowed 

 to hatch, they will probably produce from one hundred mil- 

 lion to five hundred million caterpillars. We have, there- 

 fore, good grounds to fear that, should the caterpillars be 

 allowed to hatch out in the spring, they will be spread 

 abroad, reinfecting those towns already cleared or nearly 

 so, and necessitating much of the work of the past five years 

 to be done over again. This great danger can be averted 



