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_ Estimated obligations, 1934. Decrease, Budget 1935, compared with estimated obligations, $253, (74 222, 436 194. 270 148.735 145, 655 2.68) The reduction of $48,615 in the 1935 estimate of $145,655 below the appropriation of $194,270 for 1934 consists of: Impoundment of 6% percent of 15 percent pay cut. Further reduction in working funds for 1935. 5 percent salary restoration_-- 9.443 -36, C92 9.477 +6,397 -48. 615 The reduction of $9,477 in working funds for 1935 includes: (a) An apparent increase of $323 for work on forest insects.-This increase is 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 areincluded 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_. Experiments on the control of bark beetles in the Rocky Mountain $5,000 7,000 2,500 3,000 2,500 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? 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 |