those insects or diseases which are of 
prime importance to the shade trees ; but I 
v.'ill try to condense in workable form 
those points connected with the subject 
which will be of most practical value. In 
other words a first aid treatise. 
Highly essential for carrying on a suc- 
cessful combat against insect pests is 
some knowledge and familiarity with the 
writings along that line. 
Those of you who have had experience 
with entomological literature know of the 
rather chaotic condition in which it at 
present stands, due to the immensity of the 
subject and to the comparatively short 
length of time in which it has been seri- 
ously treated. 
I do not know of any one comprehensive 
book to be found upon the market con- 
fined to general control of shade tree in- 
sects. There is, however, a most valuable 
work written by Dr. E. P. Felt, state en- 
tomologist of New York, and published by 
the New York State Museum, entitled “In- 
sects Affecting Park and Woodland Trees.’’ 
All people in charge of shade or forest 
trees should have access to these two vol- 
umes. 
In general the most valuable literature 
upon insect control has been published by 
the federal government or by the various 
state governments. Everyone in charge 
of trees, if he has not already done so, 
should secure through his congressman 
all available publications of the U. S. Bu- 
reau of Entomology relating to shade tree 
insects, and he should also ask his state 
experiment station and state department 
of agriculture to furnish him with its bul- 
letins and reports along this line of work. 
The annual Year Book of the United 
States Department of Agriculture often 
contains valuable information on insects 
and plant diseases and is well worth your 
attention. 
Now, in considering the insects with 
which we have to deal, from a practical 
standpoint, we may divide them into three 
groups ; those which eat the leaves by 
chewing, those which suck the juice from 
foliage or bark, and those which work 
within the bark or wood by boring. These 
three classes require three general methods 
of treatment. 
Insects of the first group generally at- 
tract the most attention. They, for the 
most part, offer the most practical oppor- 
tunity for insect suppression and are, 
therefore, prime objects of attack. Prom- 
inent in this group, in the New England 
States, are the gypsy and brown-tail moths, 
both importations from Europe which by 
coincidence made their entrance at nearly 
the same point in eastern Massachusetts. 
Owing to lack of natural enemies, by' 
which insects in their native elements are 
generally held within reasonable control, 
these two species have spread and increased 
amazingly, since their introduction. The 
gypsy moth is the more dangerous of the 
two species. 
The elm leaf beetle, another Imported 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
pest of longer standing, is a devourer of 
the foliage and a pest of prime importance 
in the East ; the canker worm, both fall 
and spring, the forest tent caterpillars, the 
several species of tussock moths, numerous 
kinds of saw fly larvae and, at present, the 
yellow necked caterpillars all are prom- 
inent members of the leaf eating society. 
There are hundreds of other species gen- 
erally of minor importance which take 
their toll from the foliage of trees in our 
parks and cemeteries. But, and here is the 
all important point, all which work in this 
way, all which bite out little pieces of the 
leaves, chew and swallow them have the 
so-called chewing mouth parts. You can 
see their jaws in operation if you watch 
carefully, and it is worth your while to 
note the type. It is for these that our 
chemists have devised poison sprays which 
are now reaching a perfection that would 
have made Caesar Borgia envious. 
In other words arsenate of lead, arsenate 
of lime, Paris green and other arsenical 
poisons sprayed upon the foliage destroy 
the biting insects because it is taken di- 
rectly, and in quantity, into their systems. 
For such insects, therefore, every cemetery 
with a reasonable number of shade trees 
should own, or at least have the use of, a 
power spraying machine. The leaves 
should be sprayed directly after they have 
become of fair size, and wherever any of 
the aforementioned insects are plentiful 
they should again be sprayed two or three 
weeks later. In the case of the elm leaf 
beetle the second spray should be directed 
against the under sides of the leaves since 
the larvae of the beetles which really do 
the most damage feed from that surface. 
Two such sprayings, or in exceptional 
cases, three, usually afford sufficient pro- 
tection, but it is always well to carry out 
certain supplementary, or, we may say, 
preliminary, measures effective against this 
class of insects. Some of them, such as 
the gypsy moth, deposit their eggs on the 
tree trunks or the twigs in summer, and 
these egg masses remain there throughout 
the winter. It is, therefore, very much 
worth while to inspect the trees for such 
eggs and rempve them before they have 
opportunity to hatch. Gypsy moth and 
tussock moth egg masses, specimens of 
which I have in this case, may be killed by 
painting with creasote. Such treatment is 
considered preferable to removal since it 
precludes the possibility of scattering some 
of the eggs on the ground. Tent caterpillar 
eggs may be removed by means of a pole 
clipper or primer as can also the nests of 
the brown-tail moths in which the little 
larvae hibernate. 
Another measure of value consists of 
banding tree trunks with tanglefoot to 
keep down caterpillars which have crawled 
from neighboring' premises or have 
dropped from the same tree tops. Such 
bands are of particular service in cases of 
canker worm infestations. The adults of 
these inch or measuring worms are wing- 
less moths, and since pupation takes place 
219 
in the ground, the females necessarily crawl 
up the trunks to deposit eggs. I have seen 
thousands caught in a few tanglefoot 
bands. For the so-called fall species bands 
should be applied early in October ; for 
the spring species the work should be done 
late in March. 
But these methods are of no avail 
against insects of the second class: the 
sucking varieties .wliich include, prnemi- 
nently, scale insects and aphis. The former 
of these are, on the whole, of much less 
importance to the shade trees than to the 
fruit trees, though the mountain ash is 
very susceptible to attack by Putnam as 
well as by San Jose scale, and the oyster 
shell scale may be found encrusting the 
bark of the maple, polar and many other 
varieties. A close relative of the San 
Jose scale severely attacks bass and there 
are several species found on the oak, elm, 
etc. For these the treatment is spraying, 
but spraying with a material which kills 
the insect by outside contact. Their mouth- 
parts are drawn into sucking apparata by 
which they draw the juices from the bark. 
Scale insects derive their appellation from 
the fact that their minute bodies are pro- 
tected upon the bark by waxy scalelike 
coverings. 
Lime-sulphur, which may be procured in 
commercial solutions, or miscible oil, which 
is purchasable under various trade names, 
is the proper spray material for these in- 
sects and it should be applied when the 
trees are dormant since the material will 
injure foliage. In such spraying every 
particle of bark must be covered with 
spray in order to make the work effective. 
The aphis, plant lice, which seem to be 
coming more and more into evidence each 
year, are among the most difficult to handle 
of our economic insects. There are many 
species, some of which require two differ- 
ent host plants, and it is probable that there 
is still much to learn concerning their life 
histories and development. Their char- 
acteristic work is generally well known, 
however, for since their sucking of the leaf 
juices is almost invariably done from the 
under side the attacked foliage naturally 
curies inward, and in some cases, as that 
of the elm woolly aphis, veritable rosettes 
of leaves are formed. Certain species, as 
for instance, the alder woolly aphis, cluster 
upon the bark from which they draw their 
nutriment. Aphis are best controlled by 
spraying with a nicotine solution such as 
black leaf No. 40, but this must be done 
in such a way as to bring the material in 
contact with the insects. It must come to 
them for they will not come to it, as in the 
case of the chewing insects to their poison. 
The control of boring insects, our third 
group, involves a more general set of prin- 
cipals than does that of the other groups, 
for when the work of a borer becomes evi- 
dent there is generally no cure for the im- 
mediate part of the tree in which it is 
located, and the insect’s death is of pri- 
mary importance only in preventing repro- 
duction. A point in hand is the case of the 
