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the general methods of forest management which will bring about unfavorable conditions for injury and thus prevent loss.
It will also be seen how important it is to know the principal facts in regard to the life history and habits of the insect, in order to secure the best results from methods of management and of direct control.
Heretofore this species has been confused with another species with very different habits, and some of the published data and recommendations based on such confusions are of no value.
The white-pine weevil rarely, if ever, passes the winter in the terminals. The present evidence indicates that it never breeds in the thick bark of the trunks and stumps of the white pine or other pines; thus it can not be trapped in the trunks of felled and girdled pine.
DESTRUCTION OF THE BROODS.
The only practical method of destroying the weevil appears to be the treatment of the infested terminals, and to secure the best results special attention must be given to certain important details.
If the infested terminals are cut or broken during June or July and burned, the broods of the weevil will be effectually destroyed, but vast numbers of natural enemies will also be destroyed. A better method is to collect the terminals during the first half of July before the beetles begin to emerge and to place them in tight barrels securely covered with wire fly-screen netting on one or both ends (see fig. 6). The barrels should be left in the groves, so that the parasites and other enemies may escape, while the beetles perish. After the 1st of October the weevils will all be dead, and the netting may then be removed, although the barrels with their contents should be left until the following June to allow the escape of the later developing and larger parasites. The barrel should not be placed in a position to collect rain. It is necessary, however, if this method be adopted, that it be repeated two or three years in succession in the same locality, in order to catch the successive broods from the old parent beetles that live over from preceding years.
NOTE.
The statements and recommendations in this circular are based on recent observations and investigations by the author and by Field Assistant W. F. Fiske, and serve as a partial revision of what has hitherto been published.
- Approved:
- James Wilson,
- Secretary of Agriculture.
- James Wilson,
- Washington, D. C., May 21, 1907.
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