62 BULLETIN 13, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
gunny sacks, green branches, or some similar article. Chemical ex- 
tinguishers are useful wherever available. Where the woodland is 
much broken up by roads, the fire-fighting apparatus may be carried 
in a light, four-wheeled wagon. Such an outfit is especially useful 
in well-settled regions where fire endangers buildings. 
A crown fire, that is, one burning in the tops of the trees, is the 
most serious. It is always accompanied by surface fires. An ordi- 
nary crown fire will jump a wide fire fine, and has often been known 
to cross wide rivers. Under such circumstances back-firing becomes 
absolutely necessary. It can also be done where other methods of 
fire fighting can not be used, or where they fail to stop a fire. It 
should, however, be a last resource. 
STOCK. 
A pine forest is less liable to injury from cattle than is one com- 
posed of deciduous trees. Old pastures often grow up to a fair stand 
of pine even while being grazed, cattle preferring the broadleaf 
species. If it is desired to raise timber, however, cattle should be 
excluded for four or five years, or until the young growth obtains a 
good start, since they are certain to do more or less injury to the 
growing trees. 
White pine when injured shows considerable powers of recupera- 
tion, as exhibited in the ready reestablishment of a broken leader 
and the healing of wounds. In the latter case the prolific resin exu- 
dations assist by keeping out water and fungi. 
WHITE PINE WEEVIL. 
There are a number of insect and fungous enemies of white pine 
which may do more or less damage to the trees. This bulletin 
treats briefly of but one of these sources of injury, the white pine 
weevil, 1 Pissodes strobi, an insect which does a good deal of damage 
to white pine practically throughout its range, but especially in the 
East. The weevil is a reddish-brown beetle, about one-quarter of 
an inch in length, which, like all weevils, has a proboscis or snout. 
It always attacks the terminal shoot or leader of the tree and kills 
back the growth of one or two years. Though a new leader begins 
to develop the next year, through one of the side branches assuming 
a vertical position, there remains a more or less pronounced crook. 
Crooked branches, when of fair size, often saw out surprisingly large 
amounts of round-edged box board lumber, but the loss in badly 
infested stands is nevertheless great. The damage shortens the 
length of boards which can be sawed out and, of course, interferes 
with subsequent growth in quality. This is especially the case 
when, as often happens, the same trees are repeatedly attacked. 
i The white pine weevil, its habits and methods of control, are described in Circular No. 90, of the Bureau 
of Entomology, by A. D. Hopkins. 
