The Way of the Mosquito. 47 



subject of mosquitoes in Jersey, and the man that reported 

 his observations requested the department kindly to omit 

 mention of his name and place of residence a citizen 

 took kerosene worth $1.70 and paid for the labor of two 

 men for two hours and thereby obtained entire immunity 

 from mosquitoes for three weeks. Xear his house were 

 two horse troughs, a marsh, and a mill pond. A layer 

 of kerosene cast on with a cup slew all his winged 

 enemies. At the Agricultural College of Mississippi it 

 became necessary to erect eleven large water-tanks on the 

 campus. That summer mosquitoes, which had never 

 before appeared in sufficient numbers to bother anybody, 

 made life almost a waste of time. They increased so 

 rapidly that the situation became serious. Howard Evarts 

 Weed came to the rescue with the kerosene cure. He 

 was flouted as one that had imagined a fond thing. But 

 he dipped up a glass jar full of wigglers from the tank, 

 poured kerosene on its surface, and in fifteen minutes he 

 triumphantly pointed out the fact that they all were dead. 

 A cupful of kerosene in each tank freed the campus of all 

 mosquitoes within ten days. 



What hinders, then, that the country is not freed from 

 this pest? In the first place, it is everybody's business, 

 and that is well known to be nobody's business. Isolated 

 effort accomplishes little. One would think that the 

 increased values that would be given to suburban real 

 estate by the knowledge that it was free from mosquitoes 

 would tempt the owners to get together and put kerosene 

 on the still waters. On the contrary, nothing can per- 

 suade them to admit by word or deed that there ever was 

 a mosquito in the county. Full of the belief that he was 

 doing mankind a service, L. O. How r ard once printed an 

 account of how he had killed seventy-five mosquitoes in 

 his room in a New Jersey hotel by the blacking-box-lid 



