February, ’23] 
felt: problems in economic entomology 
43 
The above outline of expenditures by County officials is limited 
mostly to the expenses of inspection and quarantine, though in some 
instances an appreciable proportion of the cost of rodent control and 
other activities is included. The County Horticultural Commissioners 
of California expend considerable sums in standardization of fruits and 
vegetables, weed control and rodent control, matters receiving little 
attention in the eastern States, though as germane to the work as Gipsy 
Moth, European Corn Borer or citrus canker control in the east. 
Jt will be noted that data have been obtained from 29 of the 51 Coun¬ 
ties reported as maintaining Horticultural Inspectors who have the 
direction of approximately two hundred County Inspectors. 
The Horticultural work of the State of Colorado is carried on in co¬ 
operation with County Pest Inspectors who are employed and whose 
expenses are paid by the several Counties in which the work is done. 
The amount expended by these County officials has not been ascer¬ 
tained on account of the difficulty of obtaining the data. 
Reference has been made to the fact that quarantines are not perfect 
and in this connection we would suggest the desirability of methods 
which would result in the early detection and extermination, if advisable, 
of insects which have escaped the vigilance of quarantine officials. One 
of the practical difficulties with such a proposal is the impossibility of 
being certain that the recently established insect will prove sufficiently 
destructive in the environment to warrant the costly measures necessary 
for extermination. It would seem as though the recently established 
camphor scale, Pseudaonidia duplex Ckll., in view of the history of the 
San Jose scale in America, might be classed as one of those pests which 
should be exterminated. 
We have at the present a similar, though somewhat different problem, 
pressing for solution in the northeastern United States. I refer to the 
presence of the Gipsy Moth along approximately 75 miles of the east¬ 
ern boundary of New York State and to its threatened spread over a large 
area if matters are allowed to follow the course of the last few years. 
There is no denying the fact that the Gipsy Moth is a serious enemy 
of forests in the temperate regions of this country and if the spread of this 
insect is allowed to continue, it is only a question of time before the 
border of the infested area becomes so extensive as to make it nearly 
impossible to check further spread. 
Can we afford, as Entomologists conversant with the situation, to 
allow matters to drift in view of the fact that the possibility of extermi¬ 
nating this insect in remote infestations and under distinctly adverse 
