The remnants of an old orchard infested by various kinds of insects and plant dis benefit. As it stands, it is merely a harboring place for various in brown-tail moths. It gives no revenue and ביה lapped last summer has been gone over to creosote the eggs and to clean up rubbish and to prepare the trees for next summer's burlapping. It is probable that this work also has reduced the number of possible caterpillars very greatly, but it is also probable that the insect has been overlooked in some places, and we must rely on the burlapping next summer to discover them. In all the work of the year a close record of the work done and the places found infested has been kept so that we may know where to look for the caterpillars and egg clusters another season. It is also to be hoped that through the educational campaign which has been conducted during the past summer, people throughout the State have become thoroughly alive to the problem which this insect pest presents. In fact, instances of this interest have been evident throughout the summer. As has already been noted, a large number of insects has been sent in for identification. It is probable that in a great many cases where insects have been sent to us the people knew that they were not the gypsy moth, but an interest has been aroused in entomological study in general, and people are beginning to look about to learn more of their friends and foes in the insect world. This is as it should be, and may be put down as one of the few beneficial results from the presence of such a pest as the gypsy moth. Professor C. L. Marlatt of the Department of Agriculture at Washington has made careful estimates of the injuries of insect pests, and has found that they take annually a total of $600,000,000, or an average of ten per cent., from all the various crops which the farmer raises, to say nothing of the injury which they do to forest crops and to ornamental plantations. What other cause is there that produces a loss of ten per cent. in the income from various products which would receive so little study as insect pests have! The ignorance of the people in regard to insects occasionally amounts to a gullibility such that they are sometimes ready to buy the most absurd nostrums or pay for the application of the most useless remedies. Note the perennial bobbing up of the agents who have preparations with which all kinds of insects may be destroyed by simply inserting the remedy in a hole bored in the tree, or the fact that the man who advertised a useless trap lantern, warned against by every experiment station in the country, became wealthy through its sale. It is believed also that people generally take a hopeful view of the situation. There are a few perhaps who say, hopelessly, "What is the use of trying to fight the insect pests? They seem to appear more numerously each year, and even if a campaign against them can be prosecuted by one person, his neighbor will take no care of his crops and will thus propagate the pests." Or it is said that "the State may prosecute this work for a year or two and then drop it, and one might as well let the bugs have the trees first as last." A great majority, however, have offered to do all they can to help the matter along and to help take care of the trees on their own property. Such aid, of course, has been very gratifying as the State funds would otherwise have been entirely inadequate to keep the moth in check the past season. THE PROBABLY FUTURE STATUS OF THE INSECT. It may not be possible to predict accurately what the future status of the gypsy moth will be, should the work against it be dropped at the present time. It is reasonable to presume, however, that we ought to be able to judge something of its future by its past record since it was introduced into this country. The writer has no desire to magnify the disastrous results which will follow its unchecked propagation and spread in the State, but the following statements can readily be verified by anyone who will read the history of the insect in Massachusetts. This report has already related how the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture fought the insect from 1890 to 1900, and while the appropriations were inadequate and did not always come at the time when most needed, the insect was so reduced in numbers and in the extent of territory infested that the people began to fancy themselves secure from future depredations and stopped the appropriations. Five years later they realized their mistake. The insect had again increased until it had become a |