• Unknown
  Canada Lumberman
  

In the literature, there is a I reference to what appeared to be a budworm outbreak in Maine about 1807. Evidence of the occurrence of a simultaneous outbreak in parts of Quebec and New Brunswick has also been found in the annual rings of living trees. Seventy years later between 1879 and 1885 another outbreak was recorded in the same general region. Then, in 1909 after a lapse of about thirty years, the Hon. C. E. Edwards called the attention of the Dominion Entomologist to a new and destructive infestation in the upper Gatineau region. From that day until this, outbreak after outbreak has occurred in Eastern Canada in a practically uninterrupted sequence. The map accompanying this article shows this at a glance. To all appearance, then, the budworm menace has been steadily growing in importance as the years progressed. This conclusion is supported by a knowledge of the principal reasons for this state of affairs. In Bulletin 37, Dominion Department of Agriculture, we read as follows: "There can be no doubt that budworm epidemics can develop only when there is sufficient balsam in the forests over wide areas . Early descriptions of the forests of Maine and New Brunswick indicate that they were composed largely of spruce and pine. Within more recent times the forests of Quebec were described as much the same. In other words, the percentage of balsam was relatively much less than just before the present outbreak. Early logging operations in these forests began in more accessible regions along the coasts and larger waterways. They were intensely selective, since first the white pine was removed, and at later intervals the larger spruce, balsam being entirely disregarded. This selective cutting (Zon, 1904) rapidly increased the percentage of balsam due to the latter being left in the forest and to the better reproductive qualities of balsam under such conditions.