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Bulletin 76 



and elm. The latter were not eaten so badly as the others. They came 

 upon us from the south and in the valleys first, and are gradually working 



towards the mountains. They 

 worked on higher ground last year 

 than the year before. My observ- 

 ations extended through the towns 

 of Waterbury, Stowe, Morristown, 

 Hyde Park, and Johnson. In 1897 

 they were abundant in a small sec- 

 tion a mile north of Waterbury 

 Center and between that place and 

 Waterbury. In Stowe I think a 

 little damage was done west of the 

 village, also in Morristown and 

 Johnson 



FIGURE 10. MOTHOF THE TENT-CATER- J^^st season— 1898 —they were 

 PILLAR very plenty all over Waterbury ex- 



Male, natuial size FromLowe gept on the mountains, and did 



very great damage. About a mile north of Waterbury Center it became 

 necessary to sand the rails of the electric road on account of the number 

 of worms crushed under the wheels. They were generally distributed all 

 over Stowe and Morristown and did great damage. ' ' 



Hon. G. S. Fassett writes from Enosburgh that "'The worms first ap- 

 peared in this vicinity in the summer of 1897 on the maples in one sugar 

 grove. They did not come in great numbers, nor did they entirely strip 

 the trees of leaves but the tops of the trees were quite badly eaten. In 1898 

 this same grove was almost entirely stripped of leaves, and adjacent groves, 

 including perhaps a hundred rods north and south, were eaten quite a little, 

 but east and west the ravages extended for more than two miles. Outside 

 of this range very little damage was done south of me. North, on both 

 sides of the Missisquoi river, mostly east of Enosburgh Falls village, they 

 did more damage, notably on the farm of Merrill Jeffords. His sugar place 

 was stripped bare as in winter and did not leave out much the second 

 time. This last strip was wider north and south than the one first men- 

 tioned. Its length was about the same. While the worms were all 

 about more or less, these two strips embrace most of the apparent dam- 

 age done in this town." 



The above accounts might be multiplied, but they suffice to show the 

 character of the pest and its ability to commit most serious depredations. 

 There is no doubt that during 1897, 1898 and 1899 hundreds of acres of 

 maple groves were very largely defoliated and some of them lost their 

 leaves each of the years named. Mr. E. H. Eipley writes from Mendon : 

 " There are in the valley of the Otter sugar orchards that have been 



