2 BULLETIN 1238, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



ECONOMIC HISTORY. 



The cankerworms are among our oldest native pests, the record of 

 their ravages beginning in colonial days. As early as 1661, one 

 John Hull is said to have written that they had been abundant for 

 four years. For the succeeding century and a quarter the record is 

 very fragmentary, but, beginning with an outbreak occurring about 

 1790, it is possible to trace the successive outbreaks in considerable 

 detail, although the accounts are often obscured by a lack of accurate 

 information as to the identity of the species involved, and by accounts 

 of local outbreaks occurring independently of the main fluctuations. 



Among the premiums offered in 1793 by the Massachusetts Society 

 for Promoting Agriculture were the following (i) 2 : 



1. To the person who shall, on or before the first day of July* 1795, give a 

 satisfactory natural history of the canker worm, through all of its transforma- 

 tions, at what depth in the ground, at what distance from the tree, and at 

 what time they cover themselves; at what season, and in what form they rise 

 from the ground; on what part of the tree they generally deposit their eggs, 

 and at what time the eggs become worms ; a premium of 50 dollars, or a piece 

 of plate of that value, or the Society's gold medal, at the option of the author. 

 If more than one satisfactory history should be given before the first of July, 

 1795, that first received by the Trustees will be entitled to the premium. 



2. A premium of 100 dollars, to the person who shall, on or before the first 

 day of July, 1796, discover an effectual, and the cheapest method of destroying 

 the canker worm, and give evidence thereof to the satisfaction of the Trustees. 



The first premium was secured in 1795 by William D. Peck (#), 

 who described in considerable detail the life history and appearance 

 of the different stages, chiefly of what we now know as the spring 

 cankerworm, giving it the name Phalaena vernata. He noted, how- 

 ever, that some of the moths " rise " in November, doubtless referring 

 to the fall species, although his figures were apparently ail drawn 

 from the spring form. A lesser prize was awarded to Noah At- 

 water (3), who also presented a good account of this pest. Peck's 

 article was reprinted with some slight changes in 1796 in the Rules 

 and Regulations of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agri- 

 culture (4). Parts of it have been reprinted a number of times since. 



Before Peck's account appeared, the cankerworms had practically 

 disappeared from New England, this being attributed to a freeze 

 occurring in May, 1794, shortly after the larva? had hatched. -In 

 1801, the trustees (5, p. 4) of the Massachusetts society announced 

 that " inasmuch as the cankerworm has in some places made its ap- 

 pearance again, it is judged proper to continue the premium for the 

 most effectual and cheap method for its destruction." This outbreak 

 was apparently not as severe as the previous one, because in the 

 Agricultural Repository and Journal for June, 1815, J. Lowell (6) 

 writes : " After having been freed for nearly twenty years from the 

 ravages of the cankerworm * * * our orchards are again over- 

 run with them." In this account, he says that the " insects rise in 

 the fall," indicating that this particular outbreak consisted^ to a great- 

 extent at least, of the fall species. 



According to records made by Harris (10), the cankerworms were 

 increasingly abundant in Massachusetts from 1831 to 1840, were not 

 troublesome for the following six years, and were again on the in- 

 crease from 1847 to 1854. Since that time numerous outbreaks have 



-Reference Is made by number (italic) to " Literature cited," i/v 3<»- 



