No. 4.] THE GYPSY MOTH. 389 



tance is not under ordinaiy circumstances as gfeat in wood- 

 land centres, remote from human habitations, as it is wliere 

 the moths are numerous in cuhivated lands or in centres of 

 population, the cost of exterminative work in woodlands is 

 greater and more time is required for extermination. If 

 woodland colonies are not " nipped in the bud," the increase 

 of the moth and its limited distribution go steadily on, 

 even though it be held in check by repressive measures, so 

 that it does not do any appreciable injury. This compara- 

 tively slow but sure distribution over a large woodhmd area 

 greatly increases the ultimate cost of the work of extermina- 

 tion. It is more economical to expend, if necessary, a thou- 

 sand dollars at once in stamping out a woodland moth colony 

 while it is confined within narrow limits, than to expend a 

 smaller sum and allow the moth to spread (which it will do 

 even if its increase is partially checked), so that an expendi- 

 ture of thousands of dollars will be required year after year, 

 annually increasing, to merely hold it in check. 



Where a small isolated colony is found in the woods, the 

 quickest way to dispose of it is to cut all trees and burn the 

 underbrush and rubbish in the fall or winter. The ground 

 should then be burned over with crude oil once or twice in 

 the spring, about the time the young caterpillars hatch out. 

 Within the past two seasons an experiment of this kind has 

 been tried on a large scale on a wooded hillside, on the estate 

 of Mr. W. H. Winning, in Woburn. The moths appeared 

 in the summer of 1895 in numbers sufficient to strip the 

 foliage from the trees on two tracts of an acre or more each. 

 A careful examination of the surrounding woods showed that 

 the moths had scattered over some fifteen acres in the im- 

 mediate vicinity. The growth was largely oak and the trees 

 were from forty to sixty feet in height. All the trees and 

 undergrowth on an area of about ten acres were burned and 

 on the rest the wood was cut and marketed. The leaves 

 were raked up and burned in the fall of 1895, and in the 

 spring of 189G the ground was burned over. 



Although the first burning in the spring swept the land so 

 that very little remained except stumps and ashes, a few 

 caterpillars appeared later around the edges of the burned 

 tract and fed for a time on the sprouts which sprang up after 



