UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BUREAU OF BIOLOGICAL SURVEY 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
December 19, 1912 
Mr. William Brewster, 
145 Brattle Street, 
Cambridge, Mass. 
Dear Mr. Brewster: 
I have your letter of December 15, incidentally re¬ 
ferring to the memorial recently received from the Massachu¬ 
setts Audubon Society in relation to the suggestion in a 
bulletin of the Biological Survey as to the use of poison 
for the purpose of destroying sapsuckers engaged in injuring 
trees by removing areas of the bark, and containing some int¬ 
eresting comments in extension of the memorial. In connec¬ 
tion with the matter I would like to call your attention to a 
few facts. 
As you quote Drank Bolles, perhaps it is possible that 
you overlooked the statement in his book entitled "From Blorn- 
idon to Srnoky," where he says,from observations in hew Hamp¬ 
shire, that "the Iorest trees attacked by them £ sapsuckers] 
generally die." ^Uven if do not kill many forest trees, 
if can hardly be said of them that they are entirely harmless 
in New England. 
But I d.esire particularly to call your attention to the 
fa.ct that in the bulletin in question the gravest charge made 
against sapsuckers is not the killing of forest trees, or even 
of ornamental and orchard trees, but the production of defective 
