Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-07-07
TO SAVE TREES
An Effort Will Be Made 10 Pre-.
 serve Old Films on Green.

denuded by the myriads of beetles that are growing fat on the leaves and will soon have every tree on the park as bare as they always are in the month of January? This is a question everybody is asking his next door neighbor, but nobody appears to be able to give satisfactory answer. When the beetles first made their ap- pearance in Waterbury some years ago, the city officials had H. F. Bas- sett to take counsel with, but now when they are all at sea and nobody with the exception of Superintendent Walker of the public parks knows much about such things, but almost everybody you meet is interested and wants to see the intruders driven out in the most ruthless manner.
 Landlord Judd of The Elton has offered to donate $25 as nucleus of fund for the purpose of taking inn mediate steps to do something, and several others have expressed will ingness to help out to the extent of their means Yesterday afternoon MT Lewis, president of the Waterbury Business Mems association, and MT Judd had a talk with Superintendent Walker of the public parks and learn ed that he is giving the beetles bat tie and while the ones now doing the mischief are out of his reach, he ex- poets to be able to prevent the second crop from coming to maturing and turning in to chew up the bark after the leaves are gone. One might SUD- pose that the man going from one tree to another was not doing much good, but he is, Mir Walker stating that he collects almost a pailful of eggs every day, which are promptly destroyed. Unfortunately MT Walker is not provided with a spraying ma chine so that the parasites have suc- yceeded in getting beyond reach of the man with the broom and can afford to laugh at his futile efforts to dis lodge them. It costs considerable to get the apparatus, something in the neighborhood of $1,000, but the city has no money available for that pur- pose just now and there you are.
 Landlord Judd says that people who come here from different parts of the country think the green has few equals so far as the trees are concerned and he feels that no time should be lost in doing all in our power to save them from being ruin ed. Nearly everybody looks at it from MT Judds standpoint, but mean while the beetles are sucking the life blood out of the noble elms that have been our friends and companions since the time of our boyhood and if we don't want to see them annihilated and soon become nothing more than memory we should get busy right away and make the best fight we know how to defend them. The El- ton and other masterpieces of archi- lecture about town might topple over and disappear, but we could replace them with even handsomer structures and do 1t so quickly that a person going away on short vacation would hardly know that anything had hap pened. Not so with the trees. If we lose them very few who are now in flesh will live long enough to see their equals on the park again. The same thing might be said with refer ence to handsome trees on private property in different sections of the city, and strange to say little or noth- ing Is being done to check the rav- ages of the pests.
 To-day Mir Judd had talk with the superintendent of parks and the park committee, Commissioners Walker and Lawlor of the depart ment of public works, and it is quite likely that they will take the initia- tive towards having a special meet ing of the board of public works called to take action on the petition referred to them last night by the aldermen with reference to the con dition of the trees.
 Alderman Larkin is of the opinion that the chemical engine could do some service towards spraying the trees and offers 1t as a suggestion to those having the matter in hand. Whether this is so or not has not yet been determined, but in case meet. ing of the board of public works should be called to consider the question 1t would be we'll to ask Chief Snagg what he thinks of it. In nearly every other twon In the state the authorities are making things hot for the beetles. and 1t is about time Waterbury woke up to the seriousness of the situation.
 Walking in the vicinity of the park one is reminded of the Melancholy Days" the subject of one of ouI charming New England poets, in which he talks of naked woods and meadows brown and sere," and tells of the withered leaves heaped here and there in the hollows of the groves. The gutters and roadway are strewn with leaves punctured from one end to the other with small holes just about big enough to admit the parasites to pass through them the operation on some of them being so thorough that they are a yeritanle network and one wonders how 1t car be done with such uniformity. Tho beetles are not the same plumT jokers that terrorized the towns. people ten or twelve years ago, but they are capable of doing even mora mischief and if permitted to hay, their own way about things they will soon make short work Of nm. brageous elms, and those who find fl a pleasant place to spend a half hour during the warm weather vilI have to find other resorts.
 Consistent.