338 MOSQUITOES OF NOETH AMERICA 



The total cut in 1903 was between 1000 and 1200 tons ; the 1907 crop wdll come 

 close to 3000. And that is not the limit of productiveness. 



" ' Forty years ago the Elizabeth marshes, containing about 2200 acres, were 

 quite generally cut over and good crops of hay were obtained. There was con- 

 siderable ditching done, but it was not kept up, and as the marsh was crossed and 

 cut up by the railroads without regard to the drainage system, matters became 

 gradually worse ; the meadow rotted, the black and salt grass was replaced by 

 sedges and other useless stuff, and less and less was cut each year until, for a 

 decade past, little or nothing has been cut from the area west of the Central Eail- 

 road. Where as much as 5000 tons had once been harvested, less than a thousand 

 tons were harvested in 1903. In 1906 ditches were cut in the southeastern sec- 

 tion of the meadow in the course of the mosquito work, and an area on which 

 hip boots were needed in that year can now be safely traveled dry shod. Where 

 we found sedge and useless grasses over two-thirds of the area in 1905, on that 

 same proportion we now have good salt and black grass. In another year, if 

 the ditches are not interfered with, the sedge will be practically out. The 

 balance of the area was ditched early in 1907, all the work being completed early 

 in July. Shallow depressions that have been water covered and mosquito 

 breeders for twenty years are now dry and covered with the salt-marsh flea-bane. 

 The grass which was ten to twelve inches high last year is now twenty to twenty- 

 eight inches high and much more dense. For the first time in nearly twenty 

 years hay is being again cut in areas west of the railroad and in the area between 

 Great Island, Elizabethport and the Central Eailroad. 



" ' In draining the Shrewsbury River marshes in 1904, the same sort of opposi- 

 tion from hay producers was encountered that we met on the Newark marshes, 

 and it was objected that the ditches cut up the land and made work harder. 

 Nevertheless, the work was done and the result is a crop just double — ^mostly 

 from longer, thicker grass. Before 1904, two tons per acre was considered a good 

 crop ; now, good and bad together, it averages four tons, and local conditions 

 furnish a market that pays $10 per ton.' 



" In his annual report for the year 1908, Doctor Smith states that his investi- 

 gations showed that a very small part of the salt-marsh area produces as great 

 a crop as it should, and that what is produced does not bring as good a price as 

 it should. The market for salt hay is slight, due in part to the character of the 

 crop and partly to the uses to which it is put. Since the crop is not certain it 

 can not be relied upon, and the price varies with the size of the harvest. Salt hay 

 is used largely for packing, and the amount demanded depends upon business 

 conditions. In 1907 there was a very large crop of hay, but there was a business 

 depression at the same time which brought about so low a price as to scarcely 

 repay harvesting. He shows that salt hay is altogether too valuable to be used 

 for packing material alone, and that if an annual crop could be expected it could 

 be used to supplement upland hay in feeding horses and cattle. The drainage 

 work done by Doctor Smith under the state mosquito law will put the meadows 

 into such shape that the amount of hay produced will be increased without in- 

 crease of cost except in harvesting, and will enable the production of dependable 

 crops. He states that on July 21, 1908, he had the opportunity of seeing, at 

 Stratford, Conn., an area of about 1500 acres of salt marsh, drained and partly 

 diked and reclaimed. The largest part of the acreage was devoted to raising 

 salt hay of the best quality, for which good prices were received. On the diked 

 marsh 100 acres had been kept free from salt water since 1904. On this terri- 

 tory strawberries, asparagus, onions, and celery were being raised, and, while 

 the asparagus was not of the best quality and the strawberry plants were in no 

 way unusual, the onions and celery were of the best — in fact the celery was so 

 good that most of the market gardeners in that vicinity preferred to get their 

 supplies from this source. 



