;6 



The Pine Beetle. 



induced in the appearance of their crowns be observed, the 

 appropriateness of the name Tree-pruner will be at once 

 apparent. 



Prevejitive Measures. 



Widespread and destructive as this insect is under irrational 

 methods of forestry, it is by no means difficult to combat. This 

 is secured either by preventing its getting suitable material in 

 which to breed, or by providing it with such material, but taking 

 care that the young beetles are destroyed before they have 

 escaped from the places where they are bred. 



Most trees are felled in autumn and winter, and to leave pines 

 lying in their bark in or near woods till the middle of the 

 following summer is a sure way to propagate this and many 

 other destructive forest insects. There need be no fear of the 

 pine beetle breeding in stems from which the bark has been 

 removed, but the barking of winter-felled pines is a somewhat 

 expensive proceeding. The removal of the trees, or their con- 

 version before the month of June, should always be attended to, 

 but the ideal method of procedure is as follows. Let the trees 

 felled in autumn or winter remain in or near the wood till the 

 month of May, by which time they will have attracted most of 

 the pine beetles in the neighbourhood. Before the end of 

 May all such trees should be barked, and as, by that time, the 

 stems will be thickly beset with larvae, the bark can be removed 

 quite easily. In delaying the process of barking till May the 

 logs are not only rendered unfit to serve as future breeding 

 places, but, what is most important, they are utilised as lures or 

 traps, to which a large proportion of the beetles in the neigh- 

 bourhood are attracted, and in which they are subsequently 

 destroyed. On no account, however, must barking be delayed 

 beyond the end of May. The bark removed should be deposited 

 so that its inner surface, where the larvse and chrysalids are 

 found, is freely exposed to the sun and birds, and if this is 

 attended to there is small chance of any of the young insects 

 escaping. It is only when the bark is very thick that there is 

 a likelihood of the immature insects completing their develop- 

 ment in the bark after it is stripped off, and, in such a case, 

 burning may be undertaken. 



Small brushwood does not offer satisfactory breeding facilities 



