54 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 16 
tree and considering the fact that the sawfly outbreak extended through¬ 
out this entire region, we are forced to concede a total loss amounting to at 
least $100,000,000.00. 
The present outbreak of the spruce budworm in eastern Canada, 
Northern New England, and Minnesota has destroyed an almost un¬ 
believable amount of timber. Before this outbreak has subsided the loss 
for the whole infested area will doubtless amount to at least 200,000,000 
cords of standing woodpulp. This amount of wood, piled in cords with 
the end of each cord touching the next, would extend more than five 
times around the earth. • At an average stumpage price of $1.00 per 
cord, wfhich is doubtless too conservative a figure, the loss due to the 
budworm will equal $200,000,000.00. In Canada the Entomological 
Branch of the Department of Agriculture has devoted much effort to 
the study of this insect, but what have we done in this country? 
During the two decades from 1905 to 1925 the loss in forest products 
resulting from these two outbreaks, the sawfly and the budworm, will 
amount to a combined total of at least $300,000,000.00 or an annual 
loss of $15,000,000.00. The history of forest entomology in this country 
has been marked by a series of outbreaks. One after another pests 
have become epidemic and the epidemics have waned. To the losses 
from epidemics we must add the normal annual loss occasioned by the 
hundreds of pests whose injury may be less conspicuous but none the 
less real. The basis upon which this loss is usually estimated is 10 per¬ 
cent of the total value of all forest products. According to the 1920 
census figures, which are the latest figures available, the total value of 
forest products in 1919 was $2,420,000,000.00. Ten percent of this 
amount is $242,000,000.00. In Minnesota alone during 1919 the loss 
due to forest insects including budworm losses totalled at least $7,500,- 
000.00. Is it right that we should shut our eyes to these losses ? Should 
we not devote our energies to solving the forester’s problems as well as 
those of the farmer and the horticulturist. Do we not in our position 
as entomologists owe just as much to forestry as we do to other branches 
of agriculture? Some may point to funds which have been expended 
for the study of forest insects and say that entomology is fulfilling its 
obligation to forestry, but where are the results? 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST TOWARD FOREST INSECT PROBLEMS 
The attitude of the entomologist toward the forest insect problems 
which he has been called upon to solve has had much to do with bringing 
about the unfortunate condition in which forest entomology finds itself 
