FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 255 



The Scotch pine did not fare so well. The trees, being smaller, were 

 more closely packed and suffered for the want of ventilation. Some of 

 them had moulded and were already dead. Every tree that showed the 

 least indication of life was planted, but we culled out about five thousand, 

 and of the remainder about ten thousand failed to respond at all. The 

 35,000 remaining have made an excellent growth and are to-day of good 

 size and very thrifty in appearance. 



The same can be said of the white pine, so that our transplant beds 

 throughout the nursery are well stocked with a thrifty stand of young 

 trees. 



The nursery site for years had been handled as a market garden but 

 with indifferent success. The cultivation had not been thorough!}- done 

 and the weeds had been allowed to scatter their seeds. In addition to this 

 more or less weed seed was contained in the manure used for fertilizing, 

 with the result that the warm weather, that followed the abundant rainfall 

 of the spring, brought into being millions of weeds. In order to cope with 

 this condition, it became necessary to employ additional help to clean out 

 the beds and prevent the weeds from seeding again. This we did and we 

 feel confident that in succeeding years the ground can be kept in a desirable 

 condition with much less trouble and expense. 



We had considerable trouble from the depredations of a larva, or grub 

 (probably Lachnosteena fusca), of the " June bug," that was very persistent 

 in destroying the trees. This it did by gnawing the bark from the roots 

 and stem beneath the surface of the soil. The only remedy we used with 

 success was to discover the invader and destroy it. This is not so easily 

 done in many cases as the grub had often gone to another locality, when 

 the condition of the tree betrays the fact of its injury. We hesitated to dig 

 up the beds extensively, because the loosening of the trees at this season of 

 the year is harmful to them and often results in their death, so that in order 

 to avoid this as much as possible, we marked the place and visited again in 

 a day or two when we would usually find some new evidence of his presence 

 and could locate him with little trouble. The work of this grub continued 

 throughout the season until toward fall, when it ceased its depredations 

 and went into another stage of its life history. We succeeded in killing 

 hundreds of them and the total number would probably reach well above a 



