THE OUTLOOK. 



75 



New England, which are infested with the gipsy or brown-tail moths, 

 by private property owners, and by the United States Government, 

 in an attempt to suppress them and to prevent their further dissemi- 

 nation. Every known means which promised good results in accom- 

 plishing this end has been tried in the field. The best methods of hand 

 suppression have been carried on extensively and foreign countries 

 have been literally ransacked for parasitic and predaceous enemies 

 of the moths in the hope that they may in due time develop into a 

 most important factor in checking the ravages of these insects. 

 Owing to the ability of both sexes of the brown-tail moth to fly con- 

 siderable distances, it has been impossible to prevent its rapid spread 

 to new localities (see fig. 22), but the methods employed in the worst 



Fig. 21. 



-View of a hill where all the timber was cut to prevent its destruction by the gipsy moth ; pile of 

 logs in the foreground. (Original.) 



infested sections have afforded a large amount of relief from the injury 

 which this insect causes. 



Each year more or less territory has been found infested by the 

 gipsy moth where the pest was not previously known to exist, so that 

 the territory now known to be infested covers in the aggregate about 

 7,900 square miles. (See PI. XIII.) At a conservative estimate 

 three-fourths of this area consists of wooded land, while the balance 

 is made up of residential sections, orchards, and farm lands. While 

 the States in the infested section and the United States Government 

 have done much work in the residential sections and along some of the 

 principal roadways, it has been impossible to inspect the large forest 

 area so as to determine the present state of infestation. So long as 

 some of these areas remain badly infested it is difficult to prevent 

 further dissemination of the gipsy moth. The methods adopted of 

 keeping roadways clear has undoubtedly been a factor in preventing 



