2 INSECTS INJITKIOUS TO FORESTS. 



badly injured by borers and that these borers were abundant. On 

 March 8, 1907, he collected larvae from chestnut telephone poles at 

 Pennsboro, W. Va. These were determined to be the larvse of the 

 chestnut telephone-pole borer. 



The writer on October 3, 1909, inspected some chestnut telegraph 

 poles which had been standing for about twelve years on New York 

 avenue, in Washington, D. C. The poles had been taken down under 

 orders from the city authorities, which necessitated the placing of 

 wires in conduits under ground, and they had been lying in piles for 

 about a month before they were inspected. The chestnut telephone- 

 pole borer had been working in the base of the poles, and white ants, 

 or termites, were associated with them. Twelve out of the 103 poles 

 examined had been damaged, some more seriously than others. 



On October 15, 1909, Mr. H. E. Hopkins sent a reply to a request 

 by Dr. A. D. Hopkins for further information regarding insect dam- 

 age to poles in West Virginia. He stated that in one line built twelve 

 years ago (40 miles long, 36 chestnut poles to the mile, poles 20 to 

 40 feet long and 5 to 12 inches in diameter at the top) approximately 

 600 poles had been rotted off at the top of the ground, and inspection 

 showed that 95 per cent of the damage was directly or indirectly 

 due to insects. Other lines in this division were reported to be in 

 about the same condition. It was later determined that most of the 

 insect damage was the work of the chestnut telephone-pole borer. 



Dr. A. D. Hopkins states in a recent comprehensive bulletin " that 

 "construction timbers in bridges and like structures, railroad ties, 

 telephone and telegraph poles, mine props, fence posts, etc., are 

 sometimes seriously injured by wood-boring larvae, termites, black 

 ants, carpenter bees, and powder-post beetles, and sometimes reduced 

 in efficiency from 10 to 100 per cent." Thus, while it has been known 

 that almost all classes of forest products that are set in the ground 

 are seriously injured by wood-boring insects, the problem of insect 

 damage to standing poles, posts, and other timbers has never been 

 made the subject of a special investigation. 



In May, 1910, this study was assigned to the writer, and, in addi- 

 tion to a study of the insects involved, investigations in cooperation 

 with telephone and telegraph companies have been conducted in the 

 District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 

 and New York. Through the courtesy of the Western Union Tele- 

 graph Company several telegraph lines were inspected in July and 

 August, 1910, in Virginia, where the poles were being reset or replaced. 

 Here the butts of over 200 poles set under different conditions of 

 site were thoroughly examined for insect damage, and sometimes the 



" Insect Depredations in North American Forests. <Bul. 58, Part V, Bureau of 

 Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture, p. 67, 1909. 



