A COSTLY ERROR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2818, 18 March 1908, Page 96

A COSTLY ERROR.

CARELESS SCIENTIST AND MOTHS. ' A moth plague which has cost millions of dollars is being fought in America. This gipsy and brown-tail moth pest is proving to be one of the greatest plagues of any ' age since the locu6ts flew over Egypt. The gipsy moth plague is due to the carelessness of a scientist who lived in Massachusetts some years ago. The gipsy is a silk-spinner, and the scientist had an idea that by crossing him with the ordinary 6ilk worm he could obtain a ca.terpirar hardy enough to withstand the cold winters. Accordingly he imported a great number fiom their native European haunts, and then, unfortunately, allowed several caterpilars to escape. When they got acclimatised to the east winds of Mastachusetts the mischief began. It was a case of 500 caterpillars to each female moth. Soon a commission had to be appointed, which expended a million and a-half dollars in ten years in a vain effort to exterminate the plague. What the result would have been had not the Legislature in a mistaken fit of economy suspended the work is a matter of speculation. Last year indignant public opinion and the openly expressed alarm of experts in the neighbouring States brought about the appointment of another commission. The brown-tail had meanwhile been imported on some rose bushes from Holland. It is a conservative estimate that over

£5200.000 will be expended in Massachusetts during the next two- years in fighting moths. —£200,000 in Two Years.— The increased seriousness of the situation is roughly indicated by the increased expenditure under a new commission as compared with the old—£3oo,ooo in ten years, as against over £200,000 in two years. The only method so far successful in controlling the plague is that of direct tree-to-tree work. Hundreds of men are going from tree to tree destroying the inpths wherever found. Certain „ habits of the insect aid in this herculean task. The brown-tail caterpillar hatches in the late summer, and as soon as' the .weather becomes cold weaves a nest of leaves and silken thread at the end of 9. bough, in,to which he crawls and hibernates all. winter. These nests are cut off and .burnt. ■ During-the winter also the eggs of the gipsy, laid in clusters on the trunks of trees, can be killed by painting with a thick coat of crude coal-tar creosote. The brown-tail caterpillar is an enemy of man. It sheds its minute, wiry hairs, and these, floating in the air, come into contact with human flesh, producing a painful; itchirig irritation of the skin. Cases have been reported so serious that the "victims, with their faces swollen out ol recognition and their eyes closed, were obliged 'to jgo to the hospital. The most helpful remedy seems to be any cooling lotion, or, best of all, an abundant use of common vaseline. An overwhelming number of moths have settled down upon eastern Massachusetts since the plague began; In the infected districts of the suburbs the _stench from the caterpillars which have dropped dead from leaves poisoned by arsenical spraying has frequently been bo great as. to necessitate disinfecting with lime before the bodies could be shovelled up and carted away by th© wheelbarrow fuH.-TrThe^ World To-day.