American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History appears in the book in connection with Frank Egler’s development of selective spraying. The institution is not presented as a pesticide-control agency: its role in the account is as the setting for work on a more discriminating way to manage vegetation, one that uses the structure of existing plant communities to limit unwanted tree growth.

Selective Spraying and the Museum

Over a period of years, Frank Egler developed selective spraying while serving as director of a Committee for Brush Control Recommendations for Rights-of-Way at the American Museum of Natural History. The method addressed vegetation along rights-of-way, where trees could obstruct drivers’ vision or interfere with wires, while shrubs, ferns, and wildflowers generally presented no comparable hazard. Its purpose was therefore not to clear all vegetation, but to control the growth that created a specific risk.

Egler’s approach relied on differences between plant communities. Shrub communities, the book explains, are strongly resistant to invasion by trees, whereas grasslands are readily invaded by tree seedlings. Rather than repeatedly suppressing unwanted growth with chemicals, selective spraying aimed to establish conditions in which trees would not return. The method’s underlying principle was that other plants could provide the best and cheapest control of vegetation.

Trials and Results

Research areas scattered throughout the eastern United States tested the method. The reported result was that a properly treated area became stable and required no respraying for at least twenty years. Application could often be carried out by workers on foot using knapsack sprayers, a contrast to broad chemical treatment and its indiscriminate effects.

The museum’s brief place in this discussion links it to an alternative to blanket vegetation removal: management guided by the relationships already present among plants. The book does not describe the museum’s wider activities, organizational structure, or a continuing institutional program beyond Egler’s work.