apie 
building regulations of cities to protect householders. These simple rules 
provide that no untreated wood shall be used in contact with or near the 
ground and that wooden beams, or stringers, shall not be laid in concrete, 
but that there must be at least an inch of concrete below the beams. Brick 
walls, if they run below the surface of the ground, should be faced with 
concrete between the earth and the bricks. No lime mortar should be used in 
case of brick work near the ground. 
A moving picture is to be taken this spring outlining the damage 
caused by insects to forest products--when and how the damage occurs and the 
modifications in lumber, mill, and factory operations necessary to prevent 
this injury, as well as methods of more direct control. 
Control operations against the western pine beetle on the Southern 
Oregon-Northern California project were resumed soon after April 1. Four 
camps of about 18 men each are at work in the few remaining heavily infested 
areas and unless the season is unusually short the work will be completed by 
June 1. An intensive cruise will be made during the summer months to deter- 
mine the influence of various control operations. This cruise will show the 
relative value of fall and spring control work, the value of control work on 
varying amounts of infestation, and many other phases of the work which are 
of practical importance. Observations and check cruises already made indicate 
that there has been a decided reduction in the infestation during the past year 
throughout the entire area. The chief difficulty encountered in the control 
work this spring has been to mark enough trees to keep the treating crews busy. 
The decreasing infestation entails greater costs per thousand and per tree. 
Dr. H. EB. Burke reports an unusual type of insect injury to large 
stands of second-growth yellow pine, sugar pine, and Douglas fir timber in 
northern California. The egg-laying wounds of some species of Cicada have 
killed or seriously injured a large proportion of the small branches from one- 
tenth to one-half inch in diameter. The open, cankerlike, shredded form of 
the wound caused the local forest officers to suspect some fungous disease, 
possibly the white pine blister rust. 
Dr. Burke also reports that a secondary shade-tree pest (Xylotrechus 
nauticus Mann.) whose normal host is the California live oak, has become, 
temporarily at least, for one orchardist, a serious fruit-tree pest. During 
the past year about 20 fine, large, vigorous pear trees were attacked and 
killed by the winding mines of the borers. That the trees were in vigorous 
health when attacked is indicated by the present normal production of foliage 
and bloom even though the bark of the trunk and larger branches is riddled by 
the borer mines. The trees are being felled and the infested wood will be 
burned to prevent the spread of the inféstation. When a small orchard pro- 
duces an average annual cash crop valued at $58,000 there is likely to be 
little haggling about pest control. 
J. C. Evenden, of the Forest Insect Field Station, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho , 
reports that a plan for the control of the mountain pine beetle epidemic in the 
lodgepole pine stands of the Missoula National Forest, Mont., is now being 

