150 FOREST PROTECTION AND CONSERVATION 
the buds are just opened in the late spring and before injury by the 
larve is evident. In woodlands such a procedure is of course im- 
practical, both from the standpoint of cost and from the impossi- 
bility of penetrating the wilds with a high-power spraying outfit. 
Indeed, in the forests man’s only hope is the natural checks such as 
parasitic and predaceous enemies which nearly invariably in the 
course of a few years control any extraordinary outbreak of 
injurious insects. 
The woods land owner can, however, lessen the danger of the 
much increased loss which will occur if the trees which are 
weakened by the budworm are attacked by hordes of beetles capable 
of breeding in them and completing their destruction. This he can 
do by using proper methods in his logging operations. If stumps 
are cut high and tops are not properly utilized they serve as excel- 
lent breeding places for bark-beetles, weevil, and other boring 
beetles, many of which when sufficiently numerous will attack and 
kill weakened or even apparently healthy trees. However, if the 
stump is reduced to the minimum, the top utilized as far as possible, 
and the slash properly disposed of, there is less opportunity for 
these injurious insects to breed and less likelihood of their breeding 
up to numbers sufficient to become notably injurious. In forests 
under natural conditions for many years, these insects are always 
present, but in the Northeastern United States, except following 
windstorms, fires and lumbering operations, they do not usually 
occur in numbers sufficient to do widespread damages. Perhaps 
the chief reason why only a small per cent of the fir and spruce in 
the Chamberlain Lake region which was weakened but not killed by 
the budworm, was attacked by weevils and bark beetles, is that a 
considerable time has elapsed since this locality has been cut over, 
and the injurious forms were not present in numbers sufficient t> 
take advantage of but afew of the weakened trees. 
Trees killed by the budworm are by no means valueless, as they 
will remain sound for several years and can be utilized for pulp- 
wood, provided they are not riddled by wood boring insects. This 
is especially true of the spruce which seems to be more resistant 
to decay than is the fir, and at the same time seems to be less attrac- 
tive to those borers which riddle the wood such as the “sawyers.”’ 
A very large per cent of the balsam has suffered from “sawyer” 
injury and much of it will soon be valueless. Owners of woodlands 
in the regions infested should, in so far as it is practicable, con- 
centrate their logging operations in the worst affected localities in 
an attempt to utilize as much as possible of the fread spruce, fir 
and hemlock before it becomes useless. 
