ITS DESTRUCTIVENESS. 



23 



I could hear them eatiug in the tree. My other trees were also 

 badly eaten. (Mrs. Margaret Cronin, corner of Oakland and 

 Sheridan streets.) 



The trees in the lower part of Edgeworth were badly eaten by 

 the gypsy-moth caterpillars in 1889. They were thick on Oakland 

 and Maiden streets and the Common. (T. J. Neville, Pearl 

 Street.) 



In 1889 we had as many caterpillars as anybody. You could 

 take a knife and scrape them off the trees. (Mrs. Margaret Con- 

 nell, 97 Maiden Street.) 



The Destructiveness of the Moth. 

 The caterpillars devoured the foliage of nearly all species 

 of trees and plants in the worst infested region. During the 

 years when the moth was most abundant, the destruction of 

 or injury to fruit, shade and forest trees and fruit and garden 

 crops was of course greatest. The destruction of trees was 

 o^reatest in those localities where the moth had been longest 

 abundant, for, though the smaller plants were often killed in 

 one season as were also the less hardy trees, those trees 

 which were lusty and vigorous would frequently withstand 

 defoliation for two or three successive years before they finally 

 gave up their hold on life. Thus the trees and gardens of 

 residents of Glenwood suffered more in these respects than 

 those of people in other parts of Medford. 



Trees Killed, 



In some cases where shade trees near dw^ellino^s were at- 

 tacked they became such a nuisance as a harboring place for 

 the caterpillars that they were cut down w^hile still alive, as 

 the only practical means of abating the nuisance. Fruit trees, 

 however, were generally allowed to stand, and a fight was 

 made to save them, which was in some cases successful, but 

 in others all efforts to check the ravages of the moth and 

 save the trees were futile. They finally died, were cut down 

 and the stumps rooted up. 



The statements following are given in the words of people 

 whose trees sufi*ered : — 



We had three apple trees, four pear trees, one plum tree and one 

 mountain ash killed by the gypsy-moth caterpillars. These trees 



