GRASSHOPPER-CONTROL WORK Mr. HART. We had some debate last year about the damage that grasshoppers were doing last summer. Did you have any grasshopper spread all over the northwest in the last year? Mr. STRONG. It was not all over the northwest, but there were an awful lot of grasshoppers there, and there was a great deal of damage done. There has been an egg survey made this summer and fall, which gives a pretty good indication of what the picture is now for 1934. I had a statement prepared of the amount of damage that was done. There is some disagreement on that, but I took the smallest figures that were submitted to me, and they are big enough, as to the amount of the damage. In Minnesota, where a lot of control work was done by the State, I think they appropriated about $225,000 to $250,000, and they did a very good job and a very effective job of control. In the Dakotas and in Montana and Wyoming and in some sections of Nebraska there was a lot of damage done, and there was no control work carried out except just here and there, what one farmer might do. There was no concerted effort at control. Of course, in 1932 we had a cold, wet spring, which retarded the development of the grasshopper and killed a lot of them off in part of the area, so that there were not as many last year as there would have been if it had not been for that. But it looks as though, for 1934, there is going to be a very bad outbreak of grasshoppers in those States. Mr. THURSTON. Right along that line, may I ask if you are making any experiments with the use of airplanes to handle the disinfectants? Mr. STRONG. On grasshoppers, you mean? Mr. THURSTON. In orchards and generally. Mr. STRONG. There has been some work done in dusting cotton, and there was some work done on certain forest insects; but for grasshoppers of course it would not work at all. You cannot scatter bait with airplanes over the area that you would have to use it on. There are certain conditions where it has some promise, but it will not be very generally used for a good while. Mr. SINCLAIR. Mr. Strong, how do you account for the very great increase in the amount of grasshopper infestation in the Northwest now? Mr. STRONG. They started in to build up a few years ago, and with the exception of the spring of 1932, almost throughout that area we have had pretty favorable years for grasshoppers to build up, and there has been no concerted control. The people out there have not been in a financial position to use control measures. They have had three species out there, and now they have a fourth, which is probably the old Rocky Mountain locust that did so much damage a number of years ago. Mr. SINCLAIR. Of course I have lived continuously out there for many years, and it must be a quarter of a century since there were grasshoppers out in that territory before. Mr. STRONG. Yes. Mr. SINCLAIR. Now, last year, especially this last season, you could not drive an automobile through some sections of North A bushel Dakota without just filling your car full of grasshoppers. of them would get in through your radiator and choke it up. Mr. STRONG. They spread up into Canada, too, and there are two of three Provinces up there that are appropriating several hundred thousand dollars to buy bait for this spring campaign. Mr. SANDLIN. Doctor, is there such a thing as a periodic return of insects, for instance like the locusts and the grasshoppers? Mr. SINCLAIR. The 17-year locusts. Mr. STRONG. Oh, yes. They hatch a brood every 17 years. That is the cicada. That takes 17 years to develop. But there are what you might call periodic returns of insects that build up to excessive proportions, and then climatic conditions, native parasites and disease strike them and knock them down, and then they build up again over a period of years; but during this process of building up they are doing a whole lot of damage. Now, it is quite possible, if you let these grasshoppers go throughout the Northwest for 2, 3, or 4 years, maybe longer, eventually something will hit them. It may be a cold, wet spring, and they will be killed as they hatch, or disease may break out and cut down the population tremendously. But all that time they will be doing a lot of damage to the people there. EXTENT OF DAMAGE CAUSED BY GRASSHOPPERS Mr. SINCLAIR. Have you made any estimate of the amount of damage done last year in the four or five States that are badly infested? Mr. STRONG. I had an estimate made. Minnesota had very effective control in 1932, and in 1933 they again produced control, as I said, so so they had very little damage then, but the estimate that I have of the grasshopper damage in 1933 in Montana was $2,927,000. The State entomologist in Montana estimated that State suffered a damage of $8,000,000. The damage is not necessarily just the crops that are eaten, but you have to take other things into account, too. For instance, the alfalfa-seed business out there is pretty good, and these grasshoppers took the blossom off of the alfalfa, so it did not seed. Then there are other blossoms eaten. The honey blossoms suffer, and the bees have nowhere to go for food. So you can figure a lot of incidental damages that you cannot see. North Dakota estimates a damage of $10,250,000 in only certain products-wheat, oats, barley, corn, and flax. In South Dakota the damage was estimated at a little more than $3,600,000. In Wyoming the State entomologist estimated that there was $250,000 damage to crops. Mr. SINCLAIR. What do you figure was the whole damage to the five or six States? Mr. STRONG. I do not have the figures totaled but it is around 17 or 18 million dollars. Mr. SINCLAIR. I think that is very conservative, because there is more damage than that; for instance, the damage to fodder. Mr. STRONG. Yes. Mr. SINCLAIR. There are counties in my State where they have just cleaned up all the green stuff that was growing. There were merely fodder crops, and they just ate them up or killed them. I would like to have that statement in the record, Mr. Chairman. Mr. SANDLIN. It may go in the record. (The statement referred to is follows:) MEMORANDUM REGARDING GRASSHOPPER DAMAGE IN THE GREAT PLAINS AREA DURING 1983 Minnesota.-Effective control in 1932 greatly reduced grasshopper populations. The 1933 campaign was merely a mopping-up process; very little crop damage; $40,000 spent on control as against $250,000 in 1933. Montana. Serious crop losses in entire northern tier of 15 counties extending from the Rocky Mountains to the North Dakota State line; the grain crops on many farms were completely destroyed. There was a 50- to 70-percent reduction in the yield of grain crops in this area due to drought and grasshoppers. Grasshoppers were fully as destructive as drought. In eastern Montana there was a 10- to 15-percent reduction in grain and corn yields due to grasshopper damage. Some damage to the margins of grain fields, alfalfa fields, and other crops during the late summer took place in every county in the State. Approximately $50,000 was spent by counties for materials used in grasshopper control. Damage to wheat, oats, barley, corn, and flax estimated by J. R. Parker at $2,927,583. Total loss to all crops in State estimated by State Entomologist A. L. Strand at $8,000,000. North Dakota.-Crop destruction complete on many farms and often over entire communities in the western half of the State-considerable damage in every county in the State. Control campaigns in 24 counties saved many crops but a late start and lack of adequate funds reduced their effectiveness. Approximately $140,000 was spent by counties for materials. Damage to wheat, oats, barley, corn, and flax estimated by J. R. Parker at $10,250,800. South Dakota.-Fifteen counties in the south-central part of the State were completely devastated. Drought would have ruined grain crops in this area but corn would have made fair yields. Grasshoppers took everything including foliage of trees and shrubs. Less extensive damage took place over the entire eastern two thirds of the State but with complete loss of crops on many farms. Drought conditions largely obscured grasshopper damage. No State or other funds were spent on control. Damage to wheat, oats, barley, flax, and corn estimated by J. R. Parker at $3,622,445. Wyoming. Serious crop losses occurred in 5 counties of north-central Wyoming with local damage over an additional 5 counties. There was also serious damage to range grass in the three northeastern counties. State Entomologist C. L. Corkins states that $250,000 is a conservative estimate of crop damage. Estimated loss to 5 crops in 1933 from grasshoppers in 3 States where the damage was most severe [Production figures and average price taken from Crops and Markets] FOREST INSECTS Mr. SANDLIN. Let us take up the item for forest insects: Forest insects: For insects affecting forest and forest products, under section 4 of the act approved May 22, 1928 (U.S.C., Supp. VI, title 16, sec. 581e), entitled “An act to insure adequate supplies of timber and other forest products for the people of the United States, to promote the full use for timber growing and other purposes of forest lands in the United States, including farm wood lots and those abandoned areas not suitable for agricultural production, and to secure the correlation and the most economical conduct of forest research in the Department of Agriculture, through research in reforestation, timber growing, protection, utilization, forest economics, and related subjects", $145,655. Will you tell us about the work done under this appropriation? Mr. STRONG. The following justification is presented for this item: Appropriation, 1932– Appropriation, 1933. Appropriation, 1934_ Estimated obligations. 1934_ $253,074 222,436 194.270 148. 735 145, 655 Decrease, Budget 1935, compared with estimated obligations, 2.48) The reduction of $48,615 in the 1935 estimate of $145,655 below the appropria tion of $194.270 for 1934 consists of: The reduction of $9,477 in working funds for 1935 includes: (a) An apparent increase of $323 for work on forest insects. This increaseis due to a misdistribution of the 5 percent salary restoration among projects. (b) An actual reduction of $9.800 which contemplates the abandonment of the project concerned with insects affecting shade trees and hardy shrubs. The activities conducted under this project are concerned largely with giving other Federal agencies, property owners, city officials, park superintendents, etc... in response to inquiries, advice which aids them in protecting shade trees from insect pests. These activities have played a very important part in improving the standards for control of insect pests on shade trees required from commercial concerns and have saved property owners and local communities considerable sums. WORK DONE UNDER THIS APPROPRIATION This appropriation provides for investigations of insects injurious to forests and forest products, the determination of methods of control for such insects. the planning and direction of the technical phases of campaigns against various outbreaks over large forested areas carried on by Federal and State agencies or private owners. One of the important phases of the work is service rendered for bark beetle control in a cooperative way with the Federal agencies, such as Forest Service and National Park Service, responsible for administering timber lands. In this cooperative work this appropriation provides for the surveys to determine the heavily infested areas and for the direction of the technical features of the control work. Such advice is also extended to timber owners and organizations, both with respect to timber stands and recreational areas. A number of different lines of investigations to determine more effective methods of controlling forest insect pests are under way, among which are included studies on the management of forested areas to prevent losses from such pests as the white pine beetle, locust borer, spruce budworm, southern pine beetle, etc. The research and advisory phases of control work on Forest insects are carried on in cooperation with Federal and State foresters and headquartered at the regional forest offices or at the forest experiment stations. Funds under this appropriation are also used for investigations on important introduced insect pests of forest trees. Some of these pests are: (a) The European pine shoot moth, which is becoming widely established in the northeast and is particularly destructive to pines set out in the reforestation water sheds and denuded lands; (b) the beech scale now established in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, a pest which when associated with a fungus, threatens the destruction of our valuable native beech; (c) the birch leaf miner, an insect particularly destructive to white birch which is spreading rapidly through Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Investigations on these and other introduced pests include studies to determine methods of control by artificial means including the importation, colonization, and distribution of parasites which may aid in their control. EMERGENCY CONSERVATION FUNDS APPLICABLE UNDER THIS HEADING The work under this activity has been augmented by an allotment of $20,000 from the emergency conservation fund. This allotment was made available August 26, 1933, and will be expended during the fiscal year 1934. It provides funds to carry on certain necessary investigations of an emergic nature to secure information which should permit the Civilian Conservation camps to do more effective work on the control of insect enemies of our forests. Funds are allotted among five activities as follows: Surveys and investigations on the beech scale___ Investigations on insect vectors of the dutch-elm disease.. Investigations on the locust borer_ $5,000 7,000 Experiments on the control of bark beetles in the Rocky Mountain region-this work deals largely with tests to determine the efficacy 2,500 3,000 2,500 of control by the injection of poisons__. Experiments on bark beetle control in California_. 20, 000 Mr. STRONG. This item has to do with the insects affecting forest trees in the national forests and in the national parks and Indian reservations, and also in private plantings throughout the country. We have certain studies going on with respect to the white pine beetle in the New England States, the southern pine beetle in North Carolina, and in the national forests in the West there is a lot of work going on in studying control of the various bark beetles. Our efforts there are to determine when these outbreaks are likely to occur, and then inform the Forest Service, and they take their people and carry on the control measures. What we do is to give them technical advice as to when the outbreaks are likely to occur and what the infestation is, and where, and then direct them in their control operations. We do not have the men, obviously, to go in and do the control work; so it is more in the line of technical direction. We have one laboratory at Melrose Highlands, in Massachusetts, that works pretty largely with insect pests that have been introduced there on forest and shade trees. What research is done on the gypsy moth is carried on there. This laboratory is also studying the European pine shoot moth, an introduced insect which is now doing a good deal of damage in parts of the Northeast. This laboratory is concerned in investigations on control for a number of general forest insects. Mr. THURSTON. Can you satisfactorily utilize the C.W.A. and the C.C.C. personnel in your work? |