66 
EASTERN SHADE TREE CONFERENCE 
trees found in Connecticut have been outside the 60 mile circle which 
includes Westchester County, New York, and most of the infected area 
in New Jersey. If Fairfield County, Connecticut, is considered as an 
outer segment of the generally infected area, the increase in numbers of 
Graphium trees does not loom so large, and the fact that infected trees 
were found in five new towns this year does not seem so discouraging. 
Analysis of the figures shows that 86 per cent of infected trees found in 
1938 were in the five towns nearest New York City (i.e., Greenwich, 
Stamford, Darien, Norwalk and New Canaan). These towns are also 
credited with 89 per cent of the total of infected trees for the entire five 
year period of scouting. 
So far as can be determined, the increase this year seems to be due 
very largely to the maintenance of wood piles by landowners who had 
cut down their own elm trees. These provided ample breeding material 
for bark beetles, with new centers of infection as a result. 
The most encouraging feature of the Connecticut situation is the fact 
that no Graphium trees were foundfin Old Lyme this year. The total 
for previous years was seven and it seems probable that this outlying in¬ 
fection center has been eradicated, although the finding of another in¬ 
fected tree or two is still a possibility. No more infected trees were 
found in Guilford, but three more were located in Branford and three in 
the neighboring town of North Branford. This looks like another out¬ 
lying infection center within ten miles of New Haven. It is more than 
twenty miles from Branford to Old Lyme and almost as far to the nearest 
known infected tree to the west in Stratford. The Branford infection 
is therefore as difficult to account for as was the one in Old Lyme. 
Every effort will be made to clean up this area next year, but it will be 
much more difficult to handle than the Old Lyme area, because of the 
hurricane results. 
This is true throughout most of the so-called infection area in Con¬ 
necticut. The main problem for the coming season is to prevent a 
staggering increase in the population of elm bark beetles by getting rid 
of the tremendous amount of hurricane felled elmwood which will other¬ 
wise provide beetle breeding material. Although this problem is a 
serious one in the shore towns of Fairfield County, it is much worse 
further east. Fortunately Scolytus multistriatus has been found in 
only one Connecticut town east of the River, although Hylurgopinus is 
abundant everywhere. In the vicinity of New Haven and Branford, 
the smaller Scolytus beetle is quite common and it is there also that the 
