45 



thin bark through which to insert their ovipositors and reach the 

 Dendroctonus larvae when depositing eggs suggests that this class of 

 beneficial insects may be favored in their work by the removal of the 

 outer thick bark by the bird. Thus the parasite would be able to 

 kill many of the beetle larvre that escape the birds. 



If the spruce-destroying beetle should become rare, through the 

 efforts of the lumbermen and the work of birds and other natural 

 enemies, the lumbermen might repay the birds for their great services 

 by providing food for them. This could easily be done by girdling to 

 the heartwood numbers of spruee trees in June and leaving them 

 stand until the following spring. These would be infested by numer- 

 ous other bark beetles, like Polygraphus. which breed in the cuttings 

 and are readily attracted to injured trees. Flat-headed and round- 

 headed bark-mining grubs would also be attracted to and breed in 

 such t rees and would furnish food for the birds. The trees could be 

 cut in the spring following, so that there would be no loss and possibly 

 much gain. 



The owners of the spruce of the Northeast owe a lasting debt of 

 gratitude to these friendly birds, and should exert every possible 

 effort to protect them and increase their numbers so that their good 

 work may continue. 



UTILIZATION OF DEAD SPRUCE. 



While this is an economic problem for the consideration of the 

 expert practical forester, it may not be out of place for the writer to 

 contribute the results of his observations, which, if not authoritative 

 on such a question, may at least be suggestive. 



The observations of the writer led him to believe at the time the 

 investigations were being made that a considerable quantity of the 

 dead timber which had been dead five to fifteen years or more 

 (PI. XIV) had yet considerable value, especially as pulp wood. He 

 was all the more convinced of this after a recent visit to the spruce 

 areas in West Virginia, where it was found that just such dead stand- 

 ing and felled spruce as was observed in Maine was here furnishing 

 a large amount of sound pulp wood. Upon examination of this wood 

 in the yard and in the trees before and after they were felled it was 

 found that some of the trees from which considerable good material 

 was secured had been dead at least twenty years. Nearly all were 

 known to have been dead at least seven years, and this in a section 

 where previous investigations indicated that the wood decays more 

 rapidly than elsewhere. 



The advantages of utilizing the wood of dead timber for pulp over 

 that for ordinary lumber is in the fact that it can be cut into short 

 lengths, the good taken and the bad left in the woods. The profitable 

 utilization of such material depends, of course, upon the cost of get- 

 ting it out of the woods, as well as convenient and moderately cheap 



