REPORT ON MOSQUITOES. 465 



was made up from the general fund. During the season the oil- 

 ing was continued. The results were a most pronounced suc- 

 cess. About $1200 was raised in 1902, which was expended about 

 equally in oiling and in ditching. 



"By the spring of 1903 the public authorities had begun to 

 recognize the progress that had been made. The Board of Health 

 assumed the work of distributing the oil, and the committee was 

 enabled to turn its attention entirely to drainage. The drainage 

 consisted of open ditches, and experience showed that in order 

 to remain effective the ditches must be cleaned out in the spring, 

 and that in mid-summer the weeds must be cut away, in order 

 that the sun could dry the ditches and the men with the oil 

 sprayer be able to reach those which might contain water. The 

 subscriptions for 1903 continued to increase over preceding years, 

 and a large amount of drainage was effected. About $1400 was 

 expended in this way. Owing to the continuous rains of the 

 early summer of 1903, the results were not so good as in the pre- 

 ceding years. That season will be remembered for the enormous 

 crop of mosquitoes which it produced throughout the Middle and 

 Eastern States. In many places where they had never been 

 known before they became a veritable plague. Toward the end 

 of the season, when the rains ceased and the water was carried 

 oft' by the ditches, the mosquitoes disappeared from South Orange 

 more rapidly than in other places which had not protected them- 

 selves. 



"During the season of 1904 work has progressed upon similar 

 lines. The Board of Health has attended to the oiling, and the 

 committee has looked after the drainage and cutting of the weeds. 

 About $1000 has been so expended. 



"The results of the three years' work has transformed large 

 areas of what had been unsightly swamp land, well nigh impas- 

 sable through the myriads of mosquitoes which it bred, into dry 

 fields, pleasant to look upon or walk through, and mosquito proof. 

 Much of the land so treated is now under cultivation — some of 

 it as a part of a golf course. 



"During the session of 1903-04 the Legislature of New Jersey 

 passed what is known as the 'Duffield Act,' enabling the Board 

 of Health to condemn as nuisances lands where mosquito larvae 

 are found. This act is destined to be of great assistance in com- 

 pelling recalcitrant land owners to do their duty by the commu- 

 nity. An instructive application of the law was made in South 

 Orange. A stream extending for a distance of 2,000 feet 

 through the lands of several different owners had become clogged 

 with the roots of trees and filled in through many years' neglect, 



30 MOS 



