- 580 - 
cause the. very favorable growing seasons of 1938 and 1939 caused a resumption 
of vigorous growth. In a group of experimental plots having a total acreage 
of l6 acres, the average tree mortality has dropped from 15.4 percent hy 
volume in hoard feet in l c >38 to 5*9 percent in 1939 and to 0;6 percent in 19 40. 
Because of the excellent growing sea.son of 1940, it is- expected that this re- 
duction of mortality will he continued in 1941 and that the beetles will he 
even less abundant than in 1940. 
SPRUCE PUT) WORM • ■ ' 
Infestations in ja.ck pine stands on the Chippewa National N 0 rest in 
northern Minnesota declined in 1940, and defoliation wo. s not noticeable in any 
of the ranger districts. The precipitation was above normal and there was a 
great improvement in stands that were heavily defoliated in 1938. The 1940 
foliage was very vigorous, and many of the trees which were weakened by drought 
a.s well as by defoliation in the upper part of the crown appee.red to be recovei 
ing. (H. J, MacAloney, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, U. S. D. A.) 
SMALLER EUROPEAN ELM BAEZ BEETLE 
State workers in New Hampshire have supplied a number of distribution 
records for the lower third of that State. They report having taicen the specif 
as far north as Erenklin and Gilmanton and a.s far west as Richmond. State and 
Government workers have found it in a number of additional towns in north- 
western Connecticut, southwestern Massachusetts, southeastern New York, and 
northeastern Pennsylvania, which extend the limits of the known infested area 
that radiates from New York City. (C.-W. Collins, Bureau of Entomology and Pi;. 
Quarantine , U. S. D. A. ) 
MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLE 
Surveys of white pine stands within the Inland Empire show an annual loss 
.of 91 * 000,000 board feet of valuable timber resulting from the attacks of the 
mountain pine beetle. This loss, which is one-fourth of the volume cut for 
lumber, is being reduced by the practice of treating all centers, or "hot 
spots," of infestation, which has apparently prevented the development of 
severe epidemic outbreaks. Tlv-re are two potentially dangorou's areas of in- 
festation in the white pine stands of northern Idaho for which control measures 
have been recommended. Although this insect continues its destructiveness in 
the whitebork pine stands of the northern Rocky Mountains, there are only light 
losses within the lodgepole pine stands of the same area. (J. C. Evenden, 
Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, U. S. E. A.) 
WESTERN PINE BEETLE 
Throughout the ponderosa pine stands of central Idaho and Montana the 
western pine beetle ( Dendroc tonus brevicomis Lee.) continues to take a fairly 
constant annual toll of approximately 0.6 percent of the total volumei (J. C. 
.Evenden, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, U. 8. D. A.) 
