122 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



mean permanent improvements and need be done once only. As 

 to those methods which are directed to the destruction of the 

 larvcC rather than the abatement of the places where they breed, 

 if they are systematically pursued for a year or two they will 

 effect such a reduction in the number of the insects that the 

 number of applications may be reduced each year until only 

 specific cases need be dealt with. 



It has been suggested that it might be well to provide breeding 

 places for hibernating specimens on the theory liiai the first 

 brood might be in this way destroyed, and that is noi at all bad. 

 My experience for several years has been that I find wrigglers of 

 the house mosquito in my pails in May, before I find them in 

 pools elsewhere. It is almost certain that these larvae are the 

 progeny of the specimens that have hibernated in my own cellar 

 and that they have made use of the nearest available place to 

 oviposit. It means only dumping these pails when they contain 

 a brood of wrigglers and refilling them afterward to attract what 

 other specimens there may be about. In that way the breeding 

 about a place can be localized and controlled, especially in a dry 

 time, because it will afford a place for oviposition and leave few 

 or n) examples for rain pools when they do make their appear- 

 ance. But this is a method for individuals and must be looked 

 after closely by the persons attempting it, lest by inattention or 

 carelessness an opposite result be obtained. An old tub or a half 

 barrel makes the best trap and should have about six inches of 

 water. A little garden soil in the bottom and a handful of old 

 leaves or dry grass ^^ ill start organic life on a scale to make the 

 water attractive a!id the rest is easy. 



It is a;-ain3t th.is particrlar species that, in our State, the oil 

 treatment has been especia'ly directed, and the method has been 

 highly successful dcspile apparent contrary reports. The diffi- 

 culty hai bsen that v^ hiie the locals were kept down, the migratory 

 forms supplied th.e pests that were noted and the method was 

 cliarged with failure. In one sense of course the campaigns were 

 failures, in that exemption from the mosquito pest was not ob- 

 tained ; but on the other hand the means were effective as against 

 all the specimens that could be reached by them. The only 

 trouble Avas that the work should have been done and the money 

 s])ent miles away. 



The best evidence of this statement is found in the collections 

 of mosquitoes sent in at short intervals from several of these 

 places ; for in these the locals were either absent or in the great 

 minority ; so scarce indeed that, with the salt marsh species elim- 

 inated, the localities would have been practically mosquito free. 



The true mosquito campaign is that which aims at permanent 



