Chapter XVI. 
INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE SPRUCE. 
Abies nigra and alba. 
Although most of the insects of the spruce also occur on the fir and 
those of the latter tree may, with very few exceptions, occur on the 
spruce, yet for the sake of clearness we will treat of them separately. 
The spruce, owing to the rarity of the pine, is the most valuable soft- 
wood timber tree of New England. It still abounds in the northern 
parts of Maine, New Hampshire, and New York, and with judicious 
treatment on the part of lumber owners will remain a perennial source 
of profit. Locally the most deadly foe of spruce and fir is the Bud 
Worm, while both trees have for some years and still are being deci- 
mated by the attacks of timber beetles, as set forth in the following 
pages. 
AFFECTING THE TRUNK AND BRANCHES. 
Timber or bark beetles. 
Species of Scolytidce. 
The destruction of spruce and firs in northern New England in 1878-'87, 
(see map, Plate xn.) — The forests of spruce and fir in Maine, northern 
New Hampshire, and New York began about the year 1874 to be de- 
stroyed by the wholesale. 
The main cause of destruction of the spruce and fir in northern New 
England and adjacent parts of Canada and New Brunswick we now 
believe to be due to the attacks of bark-borers of different species. 
The agent in the local destruction of the spruce and fir along the 
Maine coast from Portland to Thomaston was without doubt a caterpil- 
lar, the larva of Tortrix fumiferana, described in succeeding pages. 
The following remarks will therefore apply to the damage wrought in 
northern New England, away from the coast : 
In the summer of 1880, during a hasty visit to Brunswick, Me., 
and the shores of Gasco Bay, I noticed the great destruction that had 
been effected in the spruce growths on Merepoint and on some of the 
adjacent islands of Casco Bay, but failed to detect the cause of the 
disease, supposing that it was too extensive to be attributed to the 
attacks of insects, and that some meteorological cause, as severe winters 
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