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Mr. SHELLWORTH. Senator, I think you will ultimately have to do that very thing, and that the duty of the Forest Service probably to the Nation at large is to help along this educational move, and in the meantime help hold the situation as it is, so that when you are ready to take it over there will be no loss.

The CHAIRMAN. Then you advocate an extension of the Government holdings in Idaho?

Mr. SHELLWORTH. I can see no one else able to carry the load. I don't know whether you could do it now or not, but I think the time will come when you will have to do it and when you will have plenty of demand to do it.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know the Government's proportion of holdings in acreage as compared with the private holdings in Idaho?

Mr. SHELLWORTH. NO.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anyone in the audience familiar with that?

Mr. SHELLWORTH. We had it there (indicating), Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. No; that only appertains to the national forests.

Mr. BILLINGS. It is given in another column there.

The CHAIRMAN. No; that is Indian reservations and timber. I wish someone would get a record of that for it is interesting in a study of the extension of the Government holdings. As I recall about 69 per cent of the land is publicly owned in Idaho.

Mr. SHELLWORTH. There is a very large percentage in the public domain; and the figures that I gave you on public domain, Senator, were those which I considered had relation to forests and water conservation areas.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; I appreciated the classification, but I am speaking about all classes of Government-owned property.

We would like to have inserted in the record an article by Mr. Shellworth, entitled, "The pine white butterfly in southern Idaho," as part of his contri

bution.

(See Exhibit D printed at end of hearing, this day.)

Mr. SHELLWORTH. I desire to get that in, to show the relationship between the different insect pests, and to show it leaves the forest in a condition that permits the beetle to become an epidemic.

The CHAIRMAN. It defoliates the pine?

Mr. SHELLWORTH. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And after the second or third year if repeated the tree

dies:

Mr. SHELLWORTH. Yes, sir. A fortunate thing about it is where it reaches the highest stage of infestation it completely denudes areas and then the butterfly that is hatched has to go to another point. We have been told that if defoliation was continued over a period of years it would kill the tree, but by reason of its very life habits that can't occur unless it revisits from other breeding points. The eggs are laid at the top needles of the tree. The caterpiller is hatched in bunches of from 5 to 15 and start eating those needles from a point above and work down the tree until they completely take off all the needles, then they go from the caterpillar to the butterfly stage and fly to other trees that have not been defoliated and the cycle starts over again. Senator FLETCHER. At the present rate of cutting timber in Idaho and the rate of replacement of reproduction, can you make an estimate as to how long before the timber supply will be practically exhausted?

Mr. SHELLWORTH. On our own operations, unless we acquire new timber from the Forest Service, which is about all that is left down there now, our supply will probably be exhausted in 40 years.

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you, Mr. Shell worth, for your interesting state

ment.

EXHIBIT C

REFORESTATION PROBLEMS IN SOUTHERN IDAHO

(By H. C. Shellworth, secretary-treasurer Southern Idaho Timber Protective Association) The timbered areas of south Idaho have a somewhat different relationship to the physical and political economics of the State than is generally found when the water conservation value of even our inferior timber (timber not elsewhere. In my opinion the time is rapidly approaching in south Idaho now considered as being even remotely commercial) will exceed in local interest the

Please do not think that I am trying to indirectly propagandize you in favor of a reclamation appropriation in calling your attention to the following salient facts.

South Idaho generally, outside the timbered areas, has an average annual rainfall of probably less than 10 inches. The timbered mountains adjoining have an average annual precipitation of probably from 15 inches to 60 inches, which comes mostly in the form of snow and lays at elevations of from 4,000 feet up to 12,000 feet. The conservation of this snow through the stabilizing influences of the forests, even by the lowly lodge pole, alpine fir, and buck brush, is the conserving of the life blood of irrigated Idaho, and irrigated Idaho produces voters as well as apples, peaches, pigs, and cows.

These same timbered areas are the summer ranges for the cattle and sheep that are wintered on the irrigated farms, and the intervening barren foothills are the spring and lambing range of the greatest mutton-producing area in the world.

The commercial timber of southern Idaho is almost entirely western yellow pine, which will take probably 150 years to reproduce. These irrigation farmers and sheepmen will naturally hold privately owned timber lands at as high an assessed valuation as they are politically able to do, and right now the burntover and cut-over lands in southern Idaho are taxed on an assessed valuation--supposedly 50 per cent of its real value of from $1 to $6 per acre, and very little of it at $1, the average being probably $3. You can readily see that if cut-over land in south Idaho is to be handled for the greatest national good some outside help and educational work is necessary. You can imagine how far the corporation owning timber will get with any propaganda in behalf of the economics of this question. There is something here from the national standpoint for you to think about.

Gentlemen, this all goes back to the voter and to any well-founded forestry policy.

Colonel Greeley will tell you, I am sure-if you ask him-something of the way grazing on private timberlands is handled in south Idaho; that it is being overgrazed and that where five sheep graze for the summer only one should graze, and he is absolutely right. But he had the power of Government. behind his wise regulation of grazing in the national forests, and instead we have public domain intermixed with our private lands, and any attempt to control our ranges in the interests of conservation will quickly entail a visit from the Federal agents of the Department of the Interior.

For instance, there is a timbered area near the State capital-the Boise Basin-of which probably 50 per cent is in private ownership and 50 per cent is public domain. The condition on this area to-day, through the erosion of soils and the destruction of young forest growth, is a national crime. Mr. Pinchot, who several years ago was United States Forester, said of this same district, "I have never seen a better example of natural reforestation." Today it is being devastated through lack of control, although its proper management from a silvicultural standpoint is absolutely essential to the well-being of the irrigated lands of Boise Valley, and even the purity of the water used by the people of Boise.

The misinformed and distinctly selfish voices of less than half a dozen men may prevent its inclusion in the adjoining national forest, where it belongs as a matter of good government.

Throughout southern Idaho-intermixed with private lands in some instances there is something near a million and a half acres of public domain, of potential timber, forest, and water conservation value which receives insufficient, and in most cases no fire protection, and because of its location adjacent to national forests and private lands it is a menace, not only a fire menace but also a menace from the point of insect infestation, to the adjoining national forests.

If you will help control fires and insects and influence a fair tax attitude toward timber-growing lands, you will have materially helped eliminate three of the most important factors against natural reforestation. Unless help is given time will quickly force the private owner of timber-growing lands out of the reforestation picture, but the stockman, irrigation farmer, and citizen at large, through his interest as here outlined, will ask the Government to do alone what the timber-growing landowner wants you to help him do now, and your job will then-by reason of delay and lack of incentive of help by the lumberman--be the more costly and silviculturally difficult.

The company I represent lost, through the work of the pine-bark beetle, in the short space of three years, in a very limited area, 16,000,000 feet of yellow pine. At the cost of an entire change in our operation, plans, and at heavy additional costs, we have eliminated this point of epidemic infestation without one dollar of anybody's help, save and except the advice of the Government entomologist, Mr. James C. Evenden, of Coeur D'Alene. By so doing we saved the adjoining national forest from invasion. Our fight is not over, but for a few years at least must be carried on from year to year just the same as, and in conjunction with, our other timber-protection

measures.

In this connection I very much desire to impress upon you gentlemen the wisdom of any timber protection laws being formed on broad lines, so that real protection to forests and harmonious cooperation may be possible. The fire and insect control measures can be closely related and overhead costs consequently reduced. The appropriation for insect-control work should be much larger than it is and available in all situations of infection, and the areas in which it can be spent should be limited only by the degree of infestation and not by State lines.

We have enjoyed the bliss of ignorance in that we do not know how much timber we have lost in times past through insect kills. I am prompted to say this by reason of the fact that recent cruises of timberlands infested with pine-bark beetle have surprised me with the remarkable death lista loss that we have failed to appreciate before because of its very insidiousness. Forest entomology is but a phase of forestry, and a protection policy which considers fire only and gives no heed to the depradations by insects is but half a policy. It may be true that under such a policy a sustained yield within our national forests can be established, but not nutil the insect losses are reduced to the lowest possible figure will we have a maximum-sustained yield. With adequate fire protection we may feel reasonably sure that our cut-over areas will be reforested, but have we the same assurance that this timber after receiving this protection for 80 years or more will escape the ravages of insects until reached by the lumberman's axe?

If we are to practice conservation we should have a definite policy for forest insect control as well as fire. Inasmuch as insect-control work is conducted in the spring and fall, this work could be carried on by the regular fire-protection force utilizing to advantage the knowledge that these men have of their districts.

The Bureau of Entomology is without sufficient funds and personnel with which to properly conduct the work of the western field. The demands which are made upon these men by the Federal and private owners for examinations of infested timber, recommendations for control, and expert advice are so great that no intensive research work is possible. Funds and personnel should be made available to this bureau in order that the proper attention could be given to the problems of the Federal and private timber owners, and that a definite policy of research could be instituted which would improve our present methods of insect control and devise new ones.

In conclusion. I wish to say that, in my opinion, if the United States wants any yellow-pine timber for future generations the Federal Government will have to grow it and administer the grazing use of the ground it grows on. in the interest of water conservation; and in south Idaho the impelling motive, either sooner or later, will be water conservation, as directed by the clamor of the Irrigation Farmer and Stockman and the citizen at large who will expect the Government to do what the private owner can not afford to do," except, possibly, with very material help in fire and insect control and very favorable tax laws.

EXHIBIT D

THE PINE WHITE BUTTERFLY IN SOUTHERN IDAHO

(By H. C. Shell worth. Compiled for reading before the North Idaho Forest Association

at Spokane, Wash., September 12, 1922)

The insect enemies of our forests in North America fall into two general elasses-the defoliating insects and the bark beetles.

The defoliating insects belong to the families of moths and butterflies. They work upon the leaves and twigs to such an extent as to completely destroy

the foliage, thus preventing its necessary vital functions and in some instances to such an extent as to cause the death of the tree.

The defoliators which have caused the principal losses in North America are the pine white butterfly, the hemlock spanworm, the forest tent caterpillar, the brown-tail moth, and the larch worm.

Away back in 1868 a man named Dr. William H. Edwards, who at that time knew more about the butterflies of the United States than any other living person, announced that he had discovered a new kind-the only species of that genus. This butterfly he named "Nephasia menapia" (the pine white). At the same time he announced that the caterpillar of this butterfly fed exclusively upon the needles of the yellow pines of Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. But timber being more than plentiful at that time, nobody paid any particular attention to the "theory of a bugologist."

Whether the pine white butterly is an imported pest can not be proven, but the fact remains that the only other known varieties of its family are found at the present day among the islands of the Malay Archipelago. So it is possible, even probable, that the first eggs, or possibly the larvæ, were brought to one of the Pacific seaports upon vessels from those islands.

The years passed and save by a few "bugologists," the pine white butterfly became forgotten until 1882, when it suddenly appeared in incredible numbers in the woods near Spokane, Wash., and completely denuded of their foliage several hundred acres of yellow pine.

The following year Prof. C. V. Piper, of Pullman, Wash., stated that these insects were so numerous around Seattle that the waters of the bay were white with their floating bodies. In 1890 they appeared in the Olympic Mountains, and again in 1895, "when they were so abundant their dead bodies covered the ground." In 1896 Doctor Fletcher observed an outbreak in western yellow pine in the interior of British Columbia and in the Douglas fir on Vancouver Island. In 1893 they appeared in the Payette and Boise River watersheds in southern Idaho, and in the words of the oldest settler, "they practically stripped the pines from Squaw Creek Hill to the Payette Lakes."

This same old-timer insists that they first appeared in 1893 and kept increasing in numbers for three years, but disappeared the fourth year. To quote him further: "The last year they hung in ropes from the limbs to the ground and drove people out of the huckleberry patches, and even springs and pools of water had to be skimmed before one could get a drink of water." In 1894 they worked on the yellow pine on Mount Hood, and the following year made their appearance in the pine timber near Goldendale, southern Washington. In 1898 it again appeared among the yellow pine in southern Idaho “in such numbers that the pools and small streams were covered with their dead bodies." In 1899 an area of yellow-pine timber, milled the preceding year in the Cedar Mountains near this place, was investigated by Doctor Hopkins, who pronounced the damage done to the timber to have been caused by the joint work of the butterfly and bark beetle, the butterfly having been the first offender and weakened the tree so it succumbed to the succeeding attack of the bark beetle. In 1903 many square miles of coniferous forest was defoliated in southern Washington in the vicinity of Mount Adams. In 1903-4 it again appeared in southern Idaho. In 1907 there was another outbreak in Spokane County, Wash., and in southern Idaho, the present infestation in southern Idaho first showing up in the Salmon River district in 1920.

There is no reliable data as to just how destructive the invasion of the pine butterfly was to our yellow pine forests during these invasions for the reason that it appeared in conjunction with the depredations of the Dendroctonus brevicomis (bark beetle), and my own observations were similar to those made by G. B. Mains, supervisor of the Payette National Forest, and by Doctor Hopkins, United States Bureau of Entomology, in this vicinity that the attack of the defoliating insects was not usually fatal unless followed by a new infestation of the trees by the bark beetles.

These butterflies are seen in small numbers every year, but the normal damage amounts to nothing but an occasional dead limb or tree.

The pine white butterfly (Neophasia menapia Felder) resembles very close the common cabbage butterfly, which is often seen flying around gardens and roadsides. The wings of the pine butterfly are marked at the tips and on the under side with black, the females being the most heavily marked, and with small orange spots on the underside. (See photograph No. 1.) Eggs are flaskshaped and fluted on the sides. The eggs are deposited in rows, 5 to 15 on the

needles of mature pine. (See photograph No. 2.) The larvæ, or caterpillars, are dark green in color and are about 1 inch in length when full grown. The transformation from the caterpillar to the adult butterfly takes place during June and July.

There has been considerable controversy regarding the time of year that the pine white first makes its appearance. Some eminent authorities claim that the eggs are laid by the butterfly in the fall of the year upon the foliage of the pines, there to remain dormant until spring; others equally as eminent contend that the eggs are deposited during July and August and hatch out the following spring. In the opinion of Mr. Reginald Barker, of Boise, Idaho, the claim that the eggs winter over is untenable, as he says he has been unable to find any records of the eggs of any known species of butterfly inhabiting a temperate zone remaining dormant for so long a time. "And although the larvæ (caterpillars) of certain butterflies fall into a state of hibernation immediately after emerging from the egg and before having passed through the first moult (shedding of the skin), it seems hardly probable that the tiny green caterpillar of the pine white could survive the winters of the western mountains." He says that from close observation he can testify that in June, 1917. near Idaho City, specimens of the pine white emerged from chrysalids, which had laid dormant in the folds of the bark of yellow pines the whole of the previous winter. "Fifteen minutes after emergence the wings of the imago (adult insect) had attained full size, and it soared upward, presumably to find its mate."

A few days later Mr. Barker "found the whitish green, flash-shaped eggs upon the needles of a pine he had felled." "Seven days later the tiny caterpillars emerged from the eggs and immediately began to feed upon the dying needles." The caterpillar itself is dark green in color-the green being the natural result of the chlorophyl-which constitutes the coloring of the needles upon which it feeds. The body is cylindrical in shape, bearing a broad white band upon each side and a narrow white band upon the back, and terminates in two short anal tails.

In the case mentioned Mr. Barker says that "the caterpillars after going through a succession of moults, went into the chrysalid stage 71 days later, and 2 weeks after that the adult butterfly emerged." According to his theory. "this proves that the pine white is double brooded, for, of course, the butterflies immediately began mating and carrying on their cycle of life, dying shortly after having laid their eggs."

Now, according to the above basis, the second brood would not reach the chrysalid stage until the year had advanced so far that there was sufficient warmth in the sun's rays to hatch out the adult insect from the chrysalid. So it is a reasonable hypothesis that the last brood winters over in the chrysalid stage. for. although at the time Mr. Barker was felling yellow pines every day in the infested area, in no case did he find eggs after the second brood of chrysalids had made their appearance.

Again, nature has provided that the adult caterpillar, when undisturbed. lets itself down from the branches of the pines by a silken thread and pupates not in the top of the trees but upon the underbrush, fences, or among the dry needles beneath the trees. If the needles of the pines are, as some claim, infested by the dormant eggs all winter, why would it be necessary for the insect to prepare for its own propagation by descending to the ground? The answer seems to be because it can not survive the winter in the egg stage upon the tops of the snow-covered trees.

It appears at irregular intervals in different localities in such numbers as to attract the attention of the timber owners to the defoliated trees. Though large areas are defoliated, which if repeated for a few years might cause the death of the trees, its natural enemies prevent the continuance of the epidemic in any locality long enough for it to be independently destructive to the timber. The great danger from these outbreaks is the possibility of a subsequent attack by destructive bark beetles, which would find the weakened trees very favorable host material.

Thoughts of actual insect control for forest tree defoliators are practically prohibited because of the expense involved. And in the case of the pine white butterfly epidemics we are obliged to place our hopes on the history of previous outbreaks with the hopes that the natural enemies of this pest will bring about a check to its ravages. Careful observations on all defoliated areas should be maintained and all bark beetle attacks promptly stamped out, with the idea of preventing another epidemic of a more serious nature.

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