Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/438

434 protect her important lumber interests and forest-clad mountains, the features which make the state one of the most beautiful and attractive in the union, unless Massachusetts may be aided by liberal appropriations from the federal government, so that the further spread of the pest may be checked and be increasingly controlled where it is worst. To this end bills have been introduced during the present session by Hon. E. W. Roberts, of Massachusetts (H. R. 285 and 286), appropriating $250,000 for the extermination or control of the gypsy moth and $15,000 for the importation of parasites and predaceous enemies, to be administered by the secretary of agriculture. This measure has the support of New Hampshire and all the best interests of New England.

But though this appropriation is necessary for immediate use, it seems that the whole matter of the relation of the national government to the control of insect pests is in an unsatisfactory condition. Who can guarantee that this appropriation will be repeated? How can it be administered under present laws, except through the officials of the state of Massachusetts? In New Hampshire there is no legislation upon the matter at present, and any action would have to be done entirely with the permission of property owners, and by the approval of the governor, as at present no damage to property would be involved. If the national government has the power to make an appropriation for this purpose why has it not the right and duty to provide the proper machinery for its administration whenever the necessity may arise from other pests in various parts of the country, without special subsequent action of congress authorizing the same, and if congress has such prerogatives, why should they not be exercised for the benefit of the agricultural and horticultural interests, as well as those of the city trees of the entire country? To show the propriety, feasibility, and desirability of such legislation is the writer's purpose.

That national control of introduced insect pests would be of the greatest value can hardly be doubted after a brief glance at the history of the worst introduced insects of the last twenty-five years. Had there been a federal official with authority to proceed and stamp out and control the San Jose scale when it first appeared in the east, could not its spread have been to a very large extent prevented, if not indeed entirely stopped? Or similarly, if a federal official had commenced the extermination or control of the gypsy moth in the eighties before it was taken up by Massachusetts, and had supervised the work of that state, being ready to step in and prevent its subsequent spread sufficient to endanger the neighboring states, would not the alarming conditions now existing have been to a large extent prevented? The same is true of the brown-tail moth. The Gypsy Moth Committee of Massachusetts fully appreciated the danger of this pest, which in many respects is worse than the gypsy moth, but they had no funds with which to combat it. Later a small appropriation was made, but it was entirely in