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WINTHROP. 
This town, although generally infested at one time, was carefully 
inspected in the fall of 1896 with the result that only three small egg 
clusters were found. A few caterpillars were trapped in the summer 
of 1897, but no egg clusters were found in the fall, so that the town is free 
from the insect except for stragglers which may appear in another year, 
and it must be remembered that the possibility of bringing in strag- 
glers another year will be very greatly less than last season, owing to 
the radical work which has been done in the woodland colonies. 
WO BURN. 
The village and southern portions of the town of Woburn have been 
rather badly infested, but in 1896 it was reported that no moths were 
known to exist in the town at that time, except in the southwestern 
portion, near the Winchester-Lpxington boundary. In 1897 there were 
only two places in which any number of caterpillars were found. Both 
were in old stone walls covered Avith vines. These localities were thor- 
oughly burned out. In the southwestern woods a considerable num- 
ber of caterpillars were captured near the place where old colonies had 
been destroyed the previous winter, but extermination in these dan- 
gerous places has nearly been reached. Were there no reinfestations 
from the neighboring borders of Winchester and Lexington, there 
would be no difficulty iu absolutely clearing the town of Woburn in a 
very short time with sufficient means. 
THE TERRITORY AS A WHOLE. 
The infested territory as a whole now includes portions of 33 towns, 
portions of 31 towns having been included in the line drawn after the 
inspection of 1891. There have been at one time or another since 1891 
within this territory, which, by the way, comprises approximately 220 
square miles, 1,893 so-called colonies of the insect, a colony meaning a 
circumscribed spot infested by caterpillars. A colony may be very 
small and contain comparatively few insects, or it may cover a space of 
a number of acres and contain caterpillars by the thousand. At the 
present time it is safe to say that more than nine-tenths of these 1,893 
colonies have been practically exterminated. The 1891 boundary line 
of the infested territory could at the present time be drawn in to a 
very considerable extent, although, at present, there exist the remains 
of three colonies outside of that boundary line, viz, two in Brookline 
and one in Lincoln. Throughout the residential and cultivated portions 
of the territory, as a whole, the Gipsy Moth is a scarce insect. The 
dangerous colonies which still exist are in the woodlands, and at pres- 
ent every one of these is in such condition that the insect is well in 
check. The consequence of the prompt availability of the funds 
appropriated by the legislature of 1890-97 has been that the entire 
field is well in view and that the prospects are more encouraging than 
ever before. 
