Mr. SANDLIN. What do you do?

Mr. STRONG. In the infestation found now the insect is in the egg stage; they are in clusters on the trees and elsewhere. Those are killed by creosoting. While we may not get all the egg clusters, we kill the caterpillars by the use of a spray of arsenate of lead later in the season. That spray is quite an operation.

In many cases we have hose a mile long up in the hills, and we have to maintain about 250 pounds pressure at the nozzle, with 1,000 pounds at the spray pump. So it requires a lot of labor to carry the hose into the hills and do the spraying work. Eighty-five percent of the appropriation is for labor..

Mr. SANDLIN. There is no way to get rid of it, or eradicate it entirely?

Mr. STRONG. I do not think it would be practicable to attempt it. There is too much area heavily infested. It is in the woods and mountains, in the backyards and on the shade and fruit trees.

Mr. SANDLIN. The only thing to do is to confine it where it is now? Mr. STRONG. Our effort has been to confine it to the area where it now is. There are several species of parasites working on it, and while the effect by each is more or less sporadic, there is some measure of control through the use of parasites.

Of course, all these towns maintain their gypsy-moth workers. In Massachusetts, they have spent about a million dollars a year on gypsy-moth control. They have a gypsy-moth tax in a lot of these

towns.

Mr. SANDLIN. How about the other States, Vermont, for instance? Mr. STRONG. Vermont has spent some money, but not that much. Connecticut has spent some money, and Rhode Island has spent

some.

New York, for a number of years, has appropriated $175,000 a year to assist in maintaining barrier zones in this part of the State [indicating on map]. They have been of considerable assistance in preventing the spread.

Mr. SANDIIN. Has the barrier line extended west?

Mr. STRONG. No; we thought we might be able to move the line east, and possibly we could in the northern part. It will take several years of intensive work to eradicate the pest over here to the Connecticut River.

Mr. SINCLAIR. What is the barrier line?

Mr. STRONG. It is about 30 miles wide, running from Canada to Long Island. It is pretty heavily wooded for the most part, and where we make an inspection and find an infestation the object is to have that cleaned up and keep the zone clear.

Mr. SINCLAIR. That zone is kept perfectly free?

Mr. STRONG. As nearly as we can.

USE OF FUNDS ALLOTTED FROM PUBLIC WORKS ADMINISTRATION

Mr. SANDLIN. Let us get back to the amount of money allotted to you from the Public Works Administration. That amount is a little over $2,000,000?

Mr. STRONG. Yes; there was an allotment of $2,020,620.

Mr. SANDLIN. And the statement on page 185 of your justifications, which has been inserted in the record, gives the names of the projects on which this money was spent?

Mr. STRONG. That is the way it was allotted, to projects in the States of New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. This was with the idea that it would all be expended during this fiscal year, with nothing carried over into the fiscal year 1935. But we cannot go ahead with the full program in all the States if we are going to have to maintain our regular work out of the Public Works Administration funds.

Mr. SANDLIN. What about the $99,000?

Mr. STRONG. The $99,000 was for the maintenance of the quarantine, that is, for certification, of products out of the infested area, and the other work was put on the Public Works appropriation. So all of the regular appropriation we had left was the $99,000.

Mr. SANDLIN. Then under the emergency act, you had an allotment of $105,000 for 1934. Was that for all the work?

Mr. STRONG. We had $408,000 altogether for 1934 originally, but when this Public Works allotment was made, the administration, maintenance, and so on, was carried on on Public Works funds also. Mr. SANDLIN. The $105,000 was all that was used out of the regular appropriation?

Mr. STRONG. That was all that was left out of the regular appropriation. Our appropriation was $408,000. The year before it was $648,580.

Mr. SANDLIN. Just how much money will be available for 1935? Mr. STRONG. We will have to contract our program on the Public Works money to allow us to use for 1935 about $360,000. That will be for the maintenance of the barrier zone, work in Pennsylvania, and the inspection and certification work.

The $360,000 would be less than was appropriated for 1934. And we had $648,580 for the year before. The House appropriated $645,000 for last year, but there was $200,000 cut out in the Senate.

BLISTER RUST CONTROL

Mr. SANDLIN. For the item for the control and prevention of the spread of the white-pine blister rust, there is no appropriation provided for 1935. Will you tell us about that?

GENERAL STATEMENT OF WORK DONE

Mr. STRONG. Will you permit Dr. Kellerman to make a brief statement in reference to that, Mr. Chairman, inasmuch as that is in his division?

Dr. KELLERMAN. This work is directed toward the control of the white-pine blister rust, which is a very destructive disease of white pine.

The work up to the present time has resulted in satisfactory protection for a little more than one half of the eastern area, the white pine, control area there comprising about 15,000,000 acres. That is, of the total area to be worked between eight and nine million acres in the East have been satisfactorily scouted, and protective measures for the reproduction and mature white pine timber have been applied. In the West the situation is not so favorable. The disease in the inland empire and probably in the sugar-pine regions of California, spreads more rapidly than under eastern conditions, and in these

areas and in the Lake States the work has not progressed as rapidly, partly because of the higher costs of the work, and partly through lack of funds.

The western areas are more valuable in their total estimated capitalization. They represent only a little less than $300,000,000, the Eastern area representing about $125,000,000.

Mr. SANDLIN. You mean that is the value of the timber in the tree?

Dr. KELLERMAN. Of the timber at the present time. The increase in the work made possible through a Public Works allotment during the current year is bringing the western area into what we have considered a more nearly satisfactory condition. We are gaining now, and in the coming year we will make a decided gain on the disease, and in succeeding years we should be able to maintain satisfactory control with somewhat smaller funds than we will be spending during the coming year.

Mr. SANDLIN. What is your method of control?

Dr. KELLERMAN. The eradication of currants and gooseberries. The disease is one that cannot spread directly from pine to pine. It must spend part of its annual life cycle on leaves of the currant. In the West there are many species of wild currants and gooseberries, some of them very susceptible to the disease, and in the stream areas and in much of the rough country the prevalence of these wild currants and gooseberries is the obstacle to satisfactory production of pine.

We believe that the work is of very great importance in maintaining this timber resource, and I think you will find, if you will raise the question with the representatives of the Bureau of Forestry, when they appear-I think you will find that the importance of the white pine as a timber tree could hardly be exaggerated, either from present lumber conditions or in plans for future reforestation. Mr. CANNON. Then this blister rust is of sufficient importance, if uncontrolled, to materially affect our lumber supply?

Dr. KELLERMAN. Oh, yes. We look on it as equivalent to a slow fire. It is working practically during the entire year in the growing trees. Where currants and pine trees are grown at all close together, the pine will be more and more rapidly injured. Every time a canker develops on a pine tree it produces an additional area where spores can be produced as long as that tree lives. The spores are scattered by the wind on the leaves of the currant bushes. As soon as the weather conditions permit they produce spores which can again affect healthy pines. As the number of diseased pines increases, it increases the volume of infestation of both currants and the healthy pines, until finally it reaches the stage where even the mature timber is destroyed.

In our initial work we thought that it was primarily disease which would prevent the reproduction of the forests, and we did not think at the start it was likely to cause much commercial injury to the timber that was approximately at its commercial size at the present time. We now know that as the disease increases in volume, the infestation becomes so general, that the mature trees are killed. Mr. CANNON. Is the destruction of these host plants which harbor the pest during a large part of its life cycle a definite task which

you expect to conclude at some specific time, or is it a task which we have always with us and which will never be concluded?

Dr. KELLERMAN. The task will always be with us. It would be too expensive to completely eradicate all of these wild plants. What we can do is to eradicate the greater number of them, and do subsequent work in keeping the proportion of currants so low that the injury to the pines will be practically negligible.

After we complete the first general eradication, subsequent work can be carried on at a much lower cost, at about 5-year intervals, that will keep the pine practically free of the disease.

Mr. CANNON. The destruction of these plants is a task which might well be turned over to the C.W.A.?

Dr. KELLERMAN. We are doing quite a good deal of work with the C.C.C.

Mr. SANDLIN. What is your allotment this year from the Public Works fund?

Dr. KELLERMAN. From the Public Works fund we have an allotment of $2,050,000. That was estimated to cover a 16-month period. Mr. SINCLAIR. When you get an infested pine, what do you do, destroy it or burn it up?

Dr. KELLERMAN. We do not bother with the infested pine unless it is an ornamental pine. It might be possible to save the pine by pruning, but that is too expensive for forestry operations. We can prevent the spread of the disease from that pine to other pines if we can clean out the currants for a distance of about 300 yards beyond the pine growth.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Then the work is largely that of destroying these host currants?

Dr. KELLERMAN. Altogether that in both the western and eastern areas. These plants have no commerical value, so there is no objection to that work.

In the western area we have nearly one half of the timber area in the national forests, so that there our work is largely the conservation of the Government's property, rather than the protection of the privately owned timber.

It is also true, however, that in many of the Government holdings there are blocks of privately owned timber, either actually in the forests or adjacent to the national forests, so unless those are given protection as well as the timber on the national forests, it would be impossible to adequately protect the national forests.

This small map will not be particularly illuminating, I think, except to show the areas where the pine grows and where the disease is now known to occur, beginning almost at the edge of California and going north to the Canadian boundary in the West. In the East the disease is scattered through the lake region and throughout New England.

Mr. SANDLIN. Do we have the same kind of currant bushes in the East as we do in the West?

Dr. KELLERMAN. There are equally susceptible bushes, but it happens that the wild species are different from the bushes in the East. But they are equally a problem in the spread of the disease.

Mr. STRONG. This item carries the amount for the quarantine work in connection with the white-pine blister rust, and all the language

is bracketed out in both items, for control and for the prevention of the spread of the disease.

Dr. KELLERMAN. In the Eastern States the amount contributed by the States cooperating with us in this activity has amounted for some years to more than we are spending ourselves.

Mr. SANDLIN. What about the Western States?

Dr. KELLERMAN. The western States are putting in less than we are, but it should be remember in that connection that the amount of timber that the Government owns represents nearly half of the total. So, as far as the privately owned timber is concerned, it still represents a little more than the proportionate expense. In our regular expenditure of the last fiscal year, in the East the contributions from the States totaled a little more than $190,000, while our expenditures amounted to a little more than $125,000.

In the Western States the Federal expenditures were a little over $80,000, while the State expenditures were a little over $65,000. Mr. CANNON. Have you received any contributions from private concerns, from lumber or timber organizations?

Dr. KELLERMAN. In the earlier years those have been considerable. At the present time those are relatively minor contributions.

I submit the following statement in connection with this item:

The reduction of $370,657 below the appropriation for 1934, due to the elimination of this item for 1935, consists of:

Budget provision for financing work in 1935 from Public Works allotment

5 percent salary restoration__

-64, 320

Total reduction_____.

-152, 238 +6, 671 -370, 657

WORK DONE UNDER THIS APPROPRIATION

In cooperation with the many affected States and Federal agencies such as the United States Forest Service, National Park Service, and Indian Service, the Bureau conducts campaigns for the suppression and control of white pine blister rust, a fungus disease of the white or 5-needled pines by the eradication of ribes (currants and gooseberries) which are carriers of the disease, by the application of measures to delay the spread of the disease into uninfected regions, by experimentation and investigation to develop better control measures, and by leadership, technical direction and supervision, coordinates the control activities of the several cooperating agencies throughout the various sections of the country.

1 Excludes $17,500 transferred to forest pathology, Bureau of Plant Industry. Excludes $13,882 transferred to forest pathology, Bureau of Plant Industry.

This work is transferred from the Bureau of Plant Industry (control work) and the Bureau of Plant Quarantine (quarantine work). No estimate is made for the regular appropriation for 1935 as the Budget schedules provide for the use of funds for this purpose, including administration in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, from the allotment which has been made for blister rust control by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works.