PARK AND CEMETERY. 
ASKED AND ANSWERED 
An exchange of experience on practical matters by our readers. You 
are invited to contribute questions and answers to this department 
From Proceedings of American Association of Park Superintendents 
Bag Worm and Tussock Moth. 
Mr. Reinish: We have around To- 
peka the evergreen bag worm, and it 
does its damage before it is noticed 
generally, and it has destroyed groves 
of cedar near Topeka before it was 
known it was there. It is not hard 
to get rid of if taken in time, but I 
think it would be well to hear some- 
thing about it in our bulletin. Maybe 
some of the superintendents here 
have had trouble with the same pest. 
Chas. E. Keith: I would like to 
say another word about the pest. Two 
or three members have inquired about 
the Tussock moth in this section. Of 
all the easy insects that we ever had, 
I think none is easier to . overcome 
and destroy than the Tussock moth. 
We take it as it comes down full 
grown into a worm about an inch and 
three-quarters long. It will rest on 
the body of an old building, along a 
fence rail, or anywhere. It will build 
around itself a cocoon, a silky white 
cocoon. There in about from ten to 
twenty days it will change itself from 
the larvae worm to a wingless moth. 
It comes out of there after a few days. 
It conies out by eating a hole in the 
upper end of its cocoon. It will then 
lie on top of its cocoon and will wait 
there until the winged male comes 
along, who will fertilize her, and there 
after three or four days more she de- 
posits her deposit of eggs, several 
hundred of them and then she drops 
off dead. Those eggs have to lie there 
until next May, advertising their pres- 
ence by a spatter or a silk cocoon as 
big as that (indicating about four 
inches) and if you cannot go and pick 
off these cocoons from now until next 
May, you ought to have every one of 
your trees eaten up. 
Cost and Methods of Road Oiling. 
You produce a good macadam and 
oil it with crude oil; do you oil the 
soil ? 
Mr. Kessler: We have here an ex- 
cellent sub-soil, a very good road 
making material, a comparatively hard 
limestone that crushes in such form 
that it finally makes a pretty good 
road surface, and by applying a good 
macadam, and the oil on top of that, 
as we do here now, it makes a good 
road. We use an oil residuum, and 
all of this is from the Kansas fields, 
and carries paraffine oils. We have, 
like every other city in the country, 
experimented with this material, road 
making material, with different oils, 
that are available here, with the ap- 
plication of the asphaltum to the oil, 
and all sorts of things, and are not 
through with the experiments by any 
means. 
Prof. Walters: How often do you 
oil per year? 
Mr. Kessler: On some two times a 
year. 
Prof. Walters: What is the ex- 
pense per square yard approximately? 
Mr. Kessler; I can not give for this 
year. Approximately though I should 
say about l)4c per square yard. 
Q. How thick a macadam do you 
use? 
Mr. Kessler: On the park road's 
from six to eight inches, and lately 
ten; on the boulevards where there is 
very heavy travel, thirteen inches. 
Q. Would you use a heavy binder? 
Mr. Kessler: In a few experiments, 
yes sir, but they have not proven as 
satisfactory as they should, and we 
do not feel that the metal mixed with 
oil is permanent. 
Q. You think that an oil carrying 
a heavy per cent of asphalt makes a 
good binder in the building of mac- 
adam? 
Mr. Kessler: Certainly. 
Q. Requiring the use of oil per- 
haps? 
Mr. Kessler: No, but the use of 
asphalt with the oil gives it a body 
that carries it through the winter and 
spring. Now, in applying oils every 
one has found that the wet and cold 
weather of the spring is very difficult, 
very hard indeed to apply the oil until 
about the latter part of April or early 
May. Now, between that and the time 
the warm weather comes, and still in 
quite warm weather, you will find the 
paraffine oil disintegrates, it becomes 
granular and looks spotty. The re- 
sult is that in many places the at- 
tempts have been made, and success- 
fully, to use a mixture of asphalt, 
commercial asphalt in varying de- 
grees and varying quantities. That 
asphalt has the property of carrying 
these oils through the critical times of 
the spring, leaving a long time in the 
summer for the reapplication of oil. 
Q. You mean in the top three or 
four inches of the rock? 
Mr. Kessler: I mean on the upper 
crust only. 
Q. What do you think of a very 
heavy asphalt oil, or almost pure as- 
phalt on top of the three or four 
inches? 
Mr. Kessler: With a pure asphalt 
you get an asphalt surface and that 
means a dust surface, sometimes just 
like laying asphalt macadam, or a tar 
macadam. 
Q. Could you construct a prepara- 
tion of paraffine oil mixed with Trini- 
dad oil so you could get the right 
proportion of asphalt and a certain 
proportion of paraffine oil and give a 
binding effect to the top three or four 
inches and still take care of the dust? 
Mr. Kessler: Yes. 
Q. Would that be expensive? 
Mr. Kessler: You would get some- 
thing that would cost a good deal 
more than the surface coats of oil, 
that is asphalt oil; very much more, 
and I doubt if it is any better. After 
all you find that the wear on the road 
is on the surface and only the up- 
per quarter of an inch. If it is solid 
and the oil covers it completely, then 
there is little or no wear on any of the 
road. All the work that has been 
done towards the saturating or mixing 
the upper three or four inches of road 
surface with oil have proven success- 
ful, that is true, but not necessarily 
any more successful than the proper 
care of a surface coating of oil, and 
that work is infinitely less costly. 
Professor Walters: How do you 
spread your oil on the surface? Have 
you an oil tank sprinkler, or do you 
use the brush or broom? 
Mr. Kessler: No, there are oil 
sprinklers at the present. They are 
only gravity spread, but there are oil 
spreading wagons used in California 
now that spread it under pressure and 
that obviate the need of brushing and 
it distributes very much more evenly 
than the ordinary punctured pan that 
is usually used. 
Q. What is the cost per square 
yard of macadam outside of the curb 
and gutter? 
Mr. Kessler: That varies quite a 
bit, but on a 12 or 13-inch road, it 
means about $1.30 maximum per 
square yard exclusive of all cost for 
curb and gutters. 
Q. What does the curb and gutter 
cost per lineal foot? 
Mr. Kessler: From 85 to 95 cents 
per lineal foot. Our construction of 
curb and gutter here is six inches 
across the top of the gutter and eight 
inch base, 24-inch gutter and the gut- 
ter itself five inches deep. 
