12 BULLETIN 1051, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
properly. Since it is the odor of red cedar which is effective against 
moths it is recommended that in using cedar chests for the protection 
of clothing, fabrics, and furs, special care should be taken to prevent 
undue escape of the aroma from the chests. The chests should re- 
main tightly closed except when clothing is being removed or placed 
in them, and this procedure should be accomplished as rapidly as 
possible. Aside from their value in killing moths, cedar chests are 
so tightly constructed that adult moths can not gain access to them 
except when they are open. This is not true of the average trunk or 
other receptacle in which clothing is stored. 
Cedar chests exert no noticeable effect upon the adult moth or 
miller, the parent insect, which does no damage to clothing but which 
may lay eggs from which hatch the destructive larvae, or worms. 
Moths that run or fly into chests, when open, may live as long as two 
weeks or even a month, and lay many fertile eggs. 
Further, cedar chests are not effective against eggs, no matter 
whether the eggs are laid outside of the chest and accidentally intro- 
duced with the clothing, or whether they are laid in the chest itself. 
This is true regardless of the age of the eggs when they are subjected 
to the action of the chest. Imprisonment of adult moths and eggs in 
a cedar chest, however, is not an important consideration since the 
young larva? promptly succumb to the effect of the chest and neither 
the moth nor the egg eats. However, cedar chests can not be 
depended upon to kill larvae after they are 3 or 4 months 
old, or are from one-half to full grown. Some of the half to full- 
grown larvae placed in chests have died, but their death may have been 
clue to a normal mortality. The practical consideration is that many 
of them were not killed, but continued their development and matured 
as adults. These larger larvae are capable of doing considerable 
damage within the chests though it is believed that their activities are 
somewhat retarded by the effect of the chests. The older the larvae 
when they enter the chest the more resistant they are to this, until 
finally an age or size, not easily defined, is attained when larvae are 
capable of withstanding chests and continue their feeding and 
development. 
Cedar chests do kill young larvce. — Larvae hatching from eggs 
within the chests die in most instances within two or three days, 
and practically all die within two weeks. Larvae hatching from eggs 
outside the chests and introduced into them in clothing do not die so 
quickly as larvae hatching inside the chests because they are older, 
but the majorit}^ of such larvae, which soon show a tendency not to 
feed, die during the first and second weeks, although some may live 
longer. Two larvae, 2 days old when placed in a chest, lived for 
about 35 days ; such resistance, however, is the exception rather than 
the rule. 
It is important that articles intended for storage in cedar chests 
should be most painstakingly cleaned, beaten, brushed, and sunned 
whenever practicable to remove or kill as many of the moth eggs 
and larvae as possible. Special attention should be given to brush- 
ing all seams, creases, and pockets. Clothing thoroughly brushed 
and sunned should harbor none of the larger or older moth larvae 
and very few, if any, eggs and young larvae. Such clothing if stored 
at once in good cedar chests should be protected from moth ravages, 
