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Mr. STRONG. We have had splendid results in these E.C.W. camps, particularly in forest insect work. They have been located throughout a good many of the national forests and national parks, and of course they are operating under the direction of the State forester and the Federal forester and they have used them pretty largely in insect outbreaks. We found some mighty fine young men, naturally, in there. They are all young fellows. Or do you mean the Public Works appropriation?

Mr. THURSTON. Yes.

Mr. STRONG. Oh, yes; we have made good use of that.

Mr. THURSTON. I do not ask you this question, but it seems to me that we are illogical to reduce the scientific branch of these estimates and then greatly extend the nonofficial, or the branch that is not trained. You cannot adequately supervise by trimming down the supervisors.

Mr. STRONG. Of course, we can only use those men in the capacity of labor; some of it pretty high-class labor, and some of it just ordinary labor.

Mr. THURSTON. Exactly. Here is what I want to get at: Your appropriations are reduced here 20 or 25 percent. Now, with the use of the personnel of these other activities of the Government to do the common labor or the work that does not require technical training-with that personnel and the reduced appropriation, can you accomplish as much as you did in the past with the full appropriation?

Mr. STRONG. It takes time to educate these men. After they become trained, it naturally takes time, and we lose that time that we are using in training those men.

Now, we have in this forest-insect work an allotment of $20,000 from E.C.W. funds. We have had to hire trained personnel, technical men, to work out the insect problems for the conservation camp men to work on in the forests.

Mr. THURSTON. Could you tell the members of the subcommittee to what extent your work will be actually reduced by the reduction of these appropriations?

Mr. STRONG. Well, we set that out here in the individual items; what work would have to be discontinued by reason of the specific reductions that are made. Now, in this particular division the work on shade-tree insects is discontinued. That means that while we have got to stop any research work that we might have been doing under that item, we cannot stop the people of this country from writing to us and asking us about shade-tree insect problems. So we have got to sponge off some other item for the clerical and technical help necessary to reply to these communications, and there are lots of them. Any one of these items that are cut down is cut down considerably more than is indicated by that specific item, for that very reason-that a great deal of necessary work must be done out of some other item.

Mr. THURSTON. If you eliminate the shade-tree appropriation, and those trees can harbor or hold the infestation, ultimately we can go back to the fruit trees, and that just points at the lack of logic in the elimination of those items.

Mr. STRONG. I certainly would not disagree with that.

Mr. SANDLIN. What Dr. Strong said was that they could do it, and would have to take some money from these other two items.

DUTCH ELM DISEASE

Mr. CANNON. What success are you having in your investigation of the dutch elm disease?

Mr. STRONG. Of course it is a new disease to this country, and it was only found here in New Jersey and New York this past season. We only found it a short time before the foliage dropped from the trees, and the foliage is the best indication of the presence of the disease. So we thought when the foliage dropped off we would not be able to do any more scouting work this winter; but that is being handled by Doctor Kellerman's group, and they have found that they can cut branches from these elm trees up through New York and New England, and by a laboratory process they can determine whether or not the disease is present. So we have made a lot of progress that we did not think we could make, and have found infection that we did not know existed.

That disease is probably carried by one or more insects. It is positive, I think, that it is carried by one particular bark beetle, the Scolytus.

Mr. CANNON. Dr. Kellerman, up to whithin the last few years, the elm has been considered the hardiest tree in our section. During the last few years something is destroying our elms and not only the shade trees but those in the forest. They tell us that it is a root disease. They say that it is bacterial, and that there is no remedy for it.

Dr. KELLERMAN. There is some disease that is causing trouble to elms in the Middle West. I think no one in the Department is able to speak with absolute certainty about it, but it has been our belief that this disease, or these diseases, were not in themselves primarily the cause of the elms dying, but that the unusual weather conditions in the past 3 or 4 years have actually weakened the trees, and that that is probably responsible for a great deal of the injury that this disease or these diseases are causing. They are probably finishing the trees.

Mr. THURSTON. The so-called "silver maple" and "white birch " up through the Mississippi Valley have been suffering.

Dr. KELLERMAN. That was probably the result of the drought. No special study has been made of it in the Department. Our information has been derived partly from actual observation and partly from reports.

Mr. HART. Have we not had a shortage of rainfall practically since 1928?

Dr. KELLERMAN. With the exception of the last six months; yes, sir. Mr. HART. I have a business that is affected by rainfall. For 5 years we have had a shortage of rainfall. That is especially true beginning about the 1st of July, or the latter part of June, and extending to and including October. Then we will begin to get rainfall. That is not normal in Michigan.

35962-34-23

GYPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS

Mr. SANDLIN. We will take up the next item, gypsy and browntail moths. I notice that the appropriation for 1935 is cut out. Mr. STRONG. Yes, sir.

Mr. SANDLIN. Are you going to get funds from the P.W.A. to continue the work?

Mr. STRONG. We will have to if we continue the work. I submit the following statement in explanation of this item, Mr. Chairman:

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The reduction of $408,388 below the appropriation for 1934, because of the elimination of this item for 1935. consists of:

Impoundment of 6% percent of 15 percent pay cut..

Curtailments in 1934 working funds_-_

-$9,701 -259, 092

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Budget provision for financing work in 1935 from Public Works allotment_____

-95, 282

5 percent salary restoration_.

+4, 211

Total reduction__--

-408, 388

The reduction of $44,524 in working funds for 1935 includes: (a) A decrease of $9,929 on inspection and certification.-Long-distance distribution of the gypsy moth is most likely to occur on shipments of products from the infested area to uninfested States. The egg clusters are laid on forest products, nursery stock, lumber, and quarry products, to name the principal classifications of commodities likely to carry the infestation over long distances. The only method of protection for uninfested States from danger of receiving the infestation by shipments of these products lies in the careful inspection and certification. The reduced appropriation will require a corresponding reduction in the amount of inspection furnished the industries represented by these commodities.

(b) A decrease of $26,500 in barrier zone scouting and examination. This project will be discontinued, as no funds are provided for the work during 1935. (c) A decrease of $727 for work on Long Island.-This project will be discontinued, as no funds are provided for 1935.

(d) A decrease of $7,368 for extermination work in Pennsylvania.-This project will be discontinued, as no funds are provided for 1935.

CHANGE IN LANGUAGE

Language omitted from regular Appropriation Act: "Gypsy and brown-tail moths: For the control and prevention of spread of the gypsy and brown-tail moths." (See note 1 on preceding page.)

No Budget estimate is submitted for the regular appropriation for 1935, as the Budget schedules provide for the use of funds for this purpose from the allotment which has been made for gypsy and brown-tail moth control by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works.

WORK DONE UNDER THIS APPROPRIATION

The possibility of distribution of the gypsy moth over long distances on shipments of products which might carry it is illustrated by inspection records on such shipments. During the period the quarantine has been in force up to the end of the fiscal year 1932 more than 101,672 gypsy-moth egg clusters have been removed from shipments, as well as 11,337 specimens in other than egg state. Infestations have actually been discovered on and removed from shipments destined to every State except Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon. This inspection and certification covers commodities which are grouped into nursery, quarry, forest, and evergreen products. This certification is based on inspection and these commodities thus inspected and certified are eligible for interstate transportation. Industries located within the infested area and which deal with articles likely to carry this insect are enabled under Federal certification to ship their products in a normal way. If there were no Federal quarantines, State quarantines, which are practically embargoes, would be in effect in nearly every State. An interstate business in such articles would operate under a severe handicap. During the fiscal year 1933 certification covered: Evergreen products, 463 carloads and 103,766 less-than-carload lots; forest products, 2,427 carloads, 6 barge loads, and 26,633 less-than-carload lots; nursery products, 124 carloads and 57,958 less-than-carload lots; stone and quarry products, 169 barge loads, 4,957 carloads, and 125,623 less-than-carload lots. Cooperation is being maintained during the fiscal years 1934 with nine States, which States contributed an aggregate amount of $1,161,017 to the cooperative work.

P.W.A. AND C.W.A. FUNDS APPLICABLE UNDER THIS HEADING

Allotments under the National Industrial Recovery Act aggregating $2,020,620 have been made, as follows:

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This money was made available on August 15, 1933, and was allotted to be expended by June 30, 1934. These allotments are subject to revision, however, in order that $99,282 may be transferred from the original allotments for use in 1935 for the regular gipsy moth inspection and certification work, as contemplated by the Budget schedule.

Under this appropriation employment was given to men taken from the various counties in which the work was to be performed and over two thousand men were employed. As a result 1,670 miles of roadside and 643.409 acres of woodland have been scouted, and 449,106 scattered trees on cleared land have been examined, 772 acres have been chopped and many thousands of gipsy moth egg clusters have been destroyed by creosoting.

Allotments under the Civil Works program were made on December 1, 1933, for the extermination of the browntail moth, as follows:

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This work has for its object cutting and burning of the brown-tail moth winter webs. These are for the most part readily visible, making it thoroughly practicable for men not having previous experience to search for them. A reduction in the brown-tail moth population can thus be brought about which will be of benefit to human health, as well as to farmers and owners of fruit, shade, and forest trees.

Mr. STRONG. We have gotten quite a large amount from the Public Works Administration, $2,020,620, and we had figured on pretty well cleaning up 5,500 square miles of area east of the barrier zone, which has been maintained there for a number of years, that is, west of the Connecticut River, in western Connecticut, Massachusetts, and up through Vermont. We had figured on doing all that work in this present fiscal year, finishing it by July 1, 1934.

My understanding now is that in order to continue the regular work, including inspection and certification, maintenance of the barrier zone, and cleaning up the infestation in Pennsylvania, it will be necessary to contract our proposed program for this fiscal year to a figure that will allow us to have enough left to carry on our normal program of work for the next fiscal year. That is, the present plan, unless there is some regular appropriation made, and I understand that is not in the cards.

Mr. SANDLIN. Will you tell us how and where the work is being done under the appropriation?

area.

Mr. STRONG. This map [indicating map] indicates the infested Here is the heavily infested area [indicating on map], and the green indicates the lightly infested area. These red lines define the boundaries of the barrier zone, and our effort for a number of years, since 1923, has been to make inspections in this area and clean up any infestation found there, creosoting the egg clusters and spraying when the caterpillars are out in the early summer, the idea being to prevent the spread west of that zone.

There was found, however, last year a heavy infestation in Pennsylvania, including some 200 square miles. It was evidently an infestation of several years standing. But with the help of relief labor, and by diverting money from the barrier zone we have been able to cut that down pretty materially. We have also used some of the P.W.A. funds for the general work.

This infestation has been built up through here [indicating on map] for a number of years pretty heavily, and threatens our work all the time in the barrier zone. We concluded if we could cut down the infestation to the Connecticut River it would make our work easier in the barrier zone, but it would not permit us to give up the work entirely in the barrier zone if we were going to protect the area to the west.

The products in this section, that is, all nursery products, quarry products, and forest products, have to be inspected and certified for interstate movement, and if that work is not carried on there will be a lot of State embargoes on the material and they cannot move it

out.

We have about 1,900 men working in here [indicating on map] in Pennsylvania and New England on Public Works funds.

We have been working in this part of the country [indicating on map] in order to do the work when the weather was moderate, and we will have to continue our work to maintain the barrier zone.

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