EXTERMINATION. 



251 



Fernald, this would prove to be the worst possible policy, 

 as after the moths had spread over the State, the expense to 

 land owners would be enormous as compared with the expense 

 of the work as carried on by the State in the present re- 

 stricted territory. He makes the following comparison in 

 his report on the work of 1895, made to the gypsy moth 

 committee of the State Board of Agriculture : — 



' ' The value of the taxable property in this State is 

 $2,429,832,966, and an appropriation of $200,000 is a tax 

 of less than one-twelfth of a mill on a dollar. A man having 

 taxable property to the amount of $5,000 would have to pay 

 a tax of only 41 cents and 6 mills. This beggarly sum of 

 money would make but a small show in the work of clearing 

 the gypsy moth caterpillars from an infested $5,000 farm, 

 while in the uninfested parts of the State the land owners 

 would be paying an exceedingly small premium to the State 

 to insure them against the ravages of the gypsy moth. This 

 premium on a $1,000 farm would be 81 cents, and for fifty 

 years it would amount to only $4.16|. This protection 

 would extend not only to farmers and owners of forest lands, 

 but also to residents in villages and cities who own lands 

 with trees and shrubs on them, and to vegetation wherever 

 grown within the limits of our Commonwealth." 



The expense of this^ work, if undertaken by the United 

 States government, would be infinitesimal to the individual 

 citizen and would be an economical insurance against the 

 ravages of the moth on his property and that of his posterity. 



