42 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



SANITARY PRECAUTIONS. 



In August last, as you will remember, I called your attention to several 

 matters which menaced the health of the community, with the request 

 that they be brought before the State Board unless some remedy could be 

 found more easily. One of the matters related to the restriction of the 

 mosquito plague, the remedy for which I pointed out at that time. This 

 matter has been taken up recently by the Board and I understand that 

 some of my suggestions will be carried out although not under my super- 

 vision. It is to be hoped that whatever may be the results of this first 

 attempt at mosquito extermination the matter will not be allowed to rest 

 until the swamps in the immediate vicinity of the College have been 

 drained or otherwise rendered innocuous as breeding places for this pest, 

 and until the equally dangerous places on the campus itself have been 

 abolished. 



Another danger to which your attention was called, and which in my 

 opinion is even more serious because its presence is not realized, lies in 

 the ice supply for the College. So far as I know nothing has been done to 

 lessen the danger from this source. 



Ice cut from the Cedar river near the College is not fit for general 

 use; it is not simply impure but often dangerously so. True, it is not 

 intended for use in drinking water or other beverages, but it is so used in 

 very many cases and it has been used in the dairy in ways that endanger 

 the health of the community. It is not necessary to enumerate again the 

 sources of pollution of the river from which the ice comes; suffice it to 

 say that they are numerous and undeniable. Moreover, inquiry has shown 

 that since building of the spur of the railroad into the College grounds 

 it is possible to fill the College ice-house with comparatively pure ice, 

 from Lake Odessa or some equally safe lake — at a very slight increase on 

 the present cost, thus avoiding all danger from this source. 



Kespectfully, 



WALTER B. BARROWS, 

 Professor of Zoology and Physiology. 

 Agricultural College, Mich v 

 June 30, 1902. 



