Caption:
Personnel of a Forest Insect Control Camp - Shasta National Forest
The crew of an average sized control camp consists of the foreman and assistant, mess (cooks and flunky), spotting crew, treating crews, and truck driver. Mess tent and bunk tents are shown in the background. Van Brewer Wells Camp.

Photo by: J.E. Patterson
Date: October 1920

Photo and caption from page 18 of a hand-colored photo album called BarkBeetle Enemies of California Forests. Prepared by the USDA Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine in cooperation with the State Emergency Relief Administration - Project 3F-2-302 and the Emergency Educational Program. Berkeley, California. February, 1935.

Credit: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection.
Collection: Forest Health Protection digital file collection; Region 6 Regional Office, Portland, Oregon.

Wickman's account of these photo albums:
"The drought-related stress to trees on million of acres of
ponderosa pine forests in the inland West caused dramatic
levels of tree mortality that could not be ignored by politicians. Miller, Keen, and Patterson also played a clever propaganda game to procure appropriations to increase the research efforts on the western pine beetle. During the depression, government agencies provided some level of support for artists, cartographers, and draftsmen as a “make work” program. These artisans were eagerly employed by Miller at bargain prices to produce hand-colored photo albums showing the extent of the tree mortality caused by bark beetles, what was being done, and what was needed in the form of research programs to curb this wasteful tree loss. Miller got the message across by supplying these albums to trade associations, chambers of commerce, politicians, and universities."
From: Wickman, Boyd E. 2005. Harry E. Burke and John M. Miller, pioneers in Western forest entomology. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-638. Portland, OR: USDA, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. p. 126.
www.fs.fed.us/pnw/publications/pnw_gtr638/

See also: Furniss, M.M. 2018. The Battle for Old-Growth Ponderosa Pine in Northeastern California: Efforts to Control the Western Pine Beetle in Remnant Old-Growth Stands During the 1920s. American Entomologist, Volume 64, Issue 1, 8 March 2018, Pages 16–19, doi.org/10.1093/ae/tmy018

For additional historical forest entomology photos, stories, and resources see the Western Forest Insect Work Conference site: wfiwc.org/content/history-and-resources

Image provided by USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection: www.fs.usda.gov/main/r6/forest-grasslandhealth

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