Page:Stewart Holbrook on DDT.djvu/1

PORTLAND, OREGON. AUGUST 26, 1945

DDT: Atomic Bomb for Parasites of the Forests

Miracle Chemical Spells Sudden Death For Insects; Knocks the Hemlock Looper For Loop in Dusting of Oregon's Woods

BY STEWART HOLBROOK

Noted Portland Author

WHILE THOUSANDS of men were working around the clock in July in an attempt to stay Oregon's worst forest fire in a decade, a 20-man crew composed of loggers, pilots and scientific men, plus two small planes, were battling another timber menace that did not make the front pages, yet was just as big a threat to the woods as the dramatic fires loosed by criminally careless morons. This menace was the greatest invasion of hemlock loopers since 1918.

The hemlock looper is a small insect of the measuring-worm type that eats its weight in foliage in an hour, every hour. Looked at under a microscope, one of the loopers appears like something that accosted me once after an extended session in the old Portland Press club of revered memory. To the naked eye they look like green

od ind no sign of looper Furnies got into a plane and for stege. He looked closely bụt an hour, for the first hour, So damage: but he reported the the next few weeks used all For Insects; Knocks the Hemlock Looper meths to the burean of ento good flying weather to range mology in Portland, The bureau över the tree-tops of, many made a prompt investigation square miles, looking for the and found no looper damage. brown areas, and mapping the A year passed. In Sentember infestation as well as he could. of 1944, Alex Brandstrom, ehlet Scientist Furniss found things in Oregon began just as world forester for Crown Zellerbach to be bad enough. He reported war I was going into ita final corporation, got a phone call hat at Teast 20,000 acres stage, The parasite army struck from one of his company's infested, and of this area more ie of his company's Nan halt had been practically county, deploved rapidiy over where MeCulloch had seen the eaten alive. on the atump. He OnAcr onE Phean meth fpht The camn foreman added that if given one more enfny jinxed Salmonberry and Informed Brandstrom that the year of unhampered foraging Wilson riverssand before it was loggers had run into an area and breeding, the loopers, it as s and sel done, more than 500 million. where many trees were turning hungry as the 1918 army, would teet of timber was dend. I saw brown and seemed to be dying. bring the dead area to 110,000 this dead forest in 1923, and x Brandstrom got to the Lewis & acres. IIn two years, judging was a melancholy sight, ghost Clark as fast as he could. He from looper appetites in the ly gray, deserted by fauna, and put on his calked shoes and in past, the killed area veould run silent enough to give one the company with Charles Nichols. to some 550,000 aeres. killed by loopers during 1918- crulsing ihe suspected area. 1021 added tinder fuel to the They found hundreds of fine, Tilamook holocaust of 1933.

Mostof this dead Umber, logging superintendent. went to FURNISSS: tall hemlocks, together with many spruce and cedar, dead or dying. Even the alder along the Learned hy Tests Insects' Identity Furniss probably knows as strcams was dying. And, al mueh about the hemlock looper though it seemed incredible, the as any man, and he has the hap- very devil-elubs had been de py faculty, unusual in seientific LOOPERS: Loopers Hit Forests In, World War No. 2 A forester of jong experlence de 0mparting his knowl- A forester of long experience. edge easily to the layman, with looper are not spectacular, nor Brandstrom had seen the looper a minimum of technical terms. Invasions by the hemlock

are they easy.to detect in their damage of 1918-1921 in the Til He says that the looper has a carly stages. The first intima- lamook region, and what he eycle of four stages. Adults are tions of the present invasion oc found along the Lewis & 'Clark moths. They lay eggs which ago. Walter . McCulloch, then the bureau. of entomology and June. Larvae emerge from the an assistant state forester. was Robert Furniss responded, go eggs. These are the green, meas ranging along logging read in ing to the dead and dying forest uring-worms that do all the the Lewis &, Clark river area to scrape lichens and comb trec. damage, They begin to eat the worms, little more than an inch of Clatsop county. his eyes moss. He put his gathering moment they are hatched, and Jong, humping their way along sweeping the tall trees that under a field microscope and never stop, inight or day, until the limbs of hemlock, spruce, hemmed the way, when he was looked a moment. "It's the loop: mid-September, when, at last they resume what they like best comp any, and Bob King. of white flour. A couple of daye cedar and iir, for they are no stopped dead in his tracks. A er," he said, "and it's here eaten their fill, they become of all, which is to eat hemlock Crown's Iorester in Clatsop later two tiny Waco planes, Walter Buekhorn (left) and Robert Furniss, both of the Bureau of Entemology, add up dead loopers on one of the 60 sereens set up in the infested aren. Count on this sereen was 360. Eourmets and will eat anything, hue eloud of moths, small and nlenty * pupae. From pupae they return needles. Their digestive appara county.. piloted by R. B. Allison and Al Seientist Furniss knew that Ausve, arrived to make the first preter hemlock. Highly educat nowhere, soared above the p ed men term the looper Ellopia trees, then disappeared. even devil elubs, They merely bult-colored, winged up out of The next thing was to know to the moth stage, and lay eggs. tus must be one of the marvels how extensive was the infesta The larvae or worms. the of all the animal kingdom, for lugubrosa, surely a weuk at MeCulloch is a reflective round", "unle orest, hings that eat up the forest, are bopers eut and chew with ney nate of lead would kill hem-. Jony landings on the backwoods Meanwhile the targets for the tempt to deseribe the most vora soul, and as he continued his men on foot could not learn the stan, of sllken thread. When their dormant pupae stage: and. ous to man, and their effects spray planes had been Jined up McCulloch is a reflective ground a jungle. a hundred rigged lke a spider, with a cap er a letup until they return to bulky, hard to handle, danger- lock loopers, Arsenates are airport. cious and fastest-working bug eruise he got to wondering if damaged area in a year's time, wind blows them off a twig. every moment they grow green- slow. But Furnis wanted to by the ground crews, and they enemy of Oregon's big, timber. the flight could be the hemlock for in this terrain.a good woods- they merely let out their life er. meaner and hungrier. The Iast great looper invasion tooper in its final, or moth, man can make about one mile lines and are suspended until try the new chemical known as were märked by Walter Buck- Because many timber, con- DbT. This much-publicized in horn of the bureau of entomol- cerns own land in the infested secticide is and has been of high Oy. Buckhorn is an apparently area, all hands pooled their in priority, But a small amount of indestructible man who used to terests and legislative aetion it was allocated to the job, and earna none-too-dull living by was taken to permit the state 60 tons of arsenate of Igad pro- crawling out on the wing of a barnstorming biplane, high above the gaping crowds at county fairs; and In, his lighter moments rode standing ereet on the seat of a racing motoreyele around dirt tracks, steering with his feet and balance. There was no use in spread- Whole trees have fallen on ly of experienced woodsmen, ing the poison until the looper Buck, too, and he has been cruised the infested arcaS, as CERS hatched in May and June blown off elifts and dumped indieated 6y Furniss, on the and the worms began to eat, so into deep waters, Beurs have ground. They estimated that 40 the erew set to work readying clawed him futilely, and there million feet of fine old timber the attack, which would have to is a rumor in the burcau that a had been killed; and that 500 be swift and cover a lot of big sizable cougar once llt on million feet more was in imme- forest in a short time. In an old Buck's shoulders. All to no forestry department to take for vided. mal charge of the survey, and the war on the loopers. While ROGERS: Furniss was making observa- tions by air, Assistant State For- ester John B. Woods Jr. and Forester Brandstrom of Crown Zellerbach, Logether with a par Placed in Command Of Menace Fighters diate danger. Either figure is a logging camp, on the Lewis & avail. B lon Clark ihey set un their labora So, arming himself with belt, mueh to imagine in one pile." tory. They gathered looper eggs spurs and ax, Buck climbed When the Nurveys were fin and put them into incubators. 250-foot trees in the infested areas and nalled a great white began, The Crown Zellerbach lished looper compounds, and flag at the top of each. This is company sel crews to building when the eggs began to hatch a Jjob that has to be seen first- truck roads. over which the on the limbs, they tonk the hand to be fully, appreciated, killed timber could be salvaged; limbs 1to the compounds to and it isn't anything for weak men to attempt. When Buck ber soon starts to rot, they put ing hemlock here and there, on was tinished, the forest was fallers to cutting the dead for- 12.000 acres, they plaeed a cloth marked to show the hedge-hop- cage with a giass front, in order ping pilots the line of their tar- ished, action against the looper Out in the woods they "estab and because standing dead lim study. And over a timb of grow. est. Nelson Rogers, Oregon's state to note and check the rate of Rels. forester, in formal overall com looper appetites, mand of the war against the While Buckhorn was up the Central Aireraft, of Yakima, Irees, Furniss and helpers were loopers, detailed Woods and as Wash., which had sprayed poi- preparing mortuary screens for sistant John Hann to the job. son on almost every kind of in sample lots of loopers. These The bureau of entomology, Paul sect except loopers, was en. were merely a spread of white Keen, director, supplied the gaged. The ground crew cleared muslin, two by three feet. hung technical knowledge by detail. brush off a few acres of fairiy from the lower branches of Furniss, and with him Wal- level ground, laid down plank, trees, or set up on stakes, to ter Buckhor, of whom more and named the result Looper catch the looper corpses when Iater. Crown Zellerbach and Airport. They also set up tanks they fell. smaller concerns supplied the to mix the poisons, and were All was now ready. One cash, and Crown added some of ready when a, truck drove up morning in the last week of its top men to the party Includ- in Jüne to deliver the arsenate June the crew, supervised by L. ing Brandstrom, Nichols, Verne of lead and the DDT, the latter W. Orr, assistant chiet of the Coneluded on Page 2 ERGEE Here is the hemlock looper. many times magnified. which is the most voracious of woods insects. (Photos by Stan Spiegle.) Davis, resident engineer of the of which looks Iike a high grade