110 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 10 



generally understood that this anti-mosquito work has had a most 

 marked effect in reducing malaria in the town. 



In the year 1914 about 310 acres were ditched on the Hammonasset 

 salt marsh in the town of Madison. 



The General Assembly of 1915 enacted a law giving the Director of 

 the Agricultural Experiment Station authority, whenever funds have 

 been raised for the purpose, to order mosquito-breeding eliminated in 

 any swamp or marsh, and when the work has been done and duly 

 approved by him, the town must maintain it afterwards. Unfortu- 

 nately this measure carries no appropriation, so that the money must 

 be raised in some other way before any work can be started. So far 

 practically all ditching on the salt marshes in Connecticut has been 

 done from money raised by voluntary contributions. In one or two 

 cases small municipal appropriations have been made. 



In 1915 a small area of about four acres in New Haven was ditched 

 late in the season. But the season just closed has proved to be the 

 banner year for ditching salt marshes in Connecticut, and the work 

 done involves about 2,900 acres. A large portion of this acreage was 

 ditched by contract, — the largest contract of its kind ever executed in 

 Connecticut- — including all salt marshes between Branford river and 

 Hammonasset river. This covers a distance of about fifteen miles 

 in a straight line, or following the sinuosities of the coast, about twenty 

 miles. It includes all salt marshes in the towns of Madison and 

 Guilford, more than half of such area in Branford, and a few acres in 

 Clinton, or a total of about 2,668 acres. The cost was about $20,000. 



In Saybrook during September ditches were cut in two small areas 

 of salt marsh totaling about one hundred and fifty acres, and during 

 October and November, a small tide marsh of about ninet}^ acres in 

 Orange, near New Haven, was ditched. 



Thus of the total area of 22,264 acres^ of tide-water marsh in Connec- 

 ticut, several hundred acres must have been filled by electric and steam 

 railroad companies, for freight yards and docks, by cities and towns 

 for highways, by individuals and corporations for building sites. 

 More than 6,000 acres, or apparently about one third of the remaining 

 salt marsh area has already been ditched. All ditches cut in 1912 and 

 since have been maintained in workable condition. 



Bills are now being prepared for presentation to the convening 

 legislature providing for the extension of the ditching system to cover 

 all salt marshes in the state within a period of, perhaps, six years. 

 Legislation will also be sought providing for state supervision of 

 maintenance work, one half the cost being charged to the towns in 

 which the marsh areas are situated. 



1 D. M. Nesbit, Miscellaneous Special Report, No. 7, The Tide Marshes of the 

 United States, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1884. 



