WINTER NUMBER 49 
Ordinary kerosene is commonly used when only small areas 
are to be oiled. It is more expensive than crude oil and not any 
more effective. 
Any system of oiling has to be done every few weeks during 
the year, which in the long run, proves expensive. It is cheaper 
after all to drain the breeding places, as they then require very 
little attention. 
Drainage 
Drainage has become more popular in recent years and large 
areas, that it would have been thought foolish to attempt to 
drain a few years ago, have been successfully drained. Perhaps 
the most extensive work has been done in the New Jersey salt 
marshes by Dr. J. B. Smith (Smith 1901-1911). Salt marsh 
mosquitoes are long distance fiyers (forty miles in some cases) 
and large areas had to be drained to control them. Something 
of the magnitude of the work in general is gathered from the 
following figures. Up to 1911, about thirty thousand acres had 
been drained and nearly four million feet of ditches dug at a cost 
of about $75,000 (Smith 1911). Wherever this work has been 
done, the mosquitoes are practically eliminated and it has proved 
successful in every way. This work has been accompanied by 
considerable oiling, as is usually the case, to give immediate re- 
lief, and in some places where it was not practicable to drain. 
Numerous other cases of the eradication of these pests and 
the diseases they carry, by these remedial measures are on record. 
Prior to 1905, a house to house inspection showed that twenty 
per cent of the population in some parts of Staten Island were 
suffering from malaria. Anti-malaria work was undertaken, 
and in 1909 there were only five cases of malaria reported (How- 
ard 1910). Dr. E. P. Felt (1905) states that Lawrence, Long 
Island, has been freed from the salt marsh mosquitoes. H. J. 
Quayle (1906) reports some very satisfactory work against the 
salt marsh mosquito near San Francisco. The Lawrence, L. L., 
Board of Health (1903) has done good work which has rid their 
town. Havana, Cuba, has been cleared of yellow fever and made 
habitable by anti-mosquito work done under direction of the 
United States Medical Army Corps. The epidemic of yellow 
fever in New Orleans, in 1905, was stamped out by clearing the 
city of mosquitoes. Some of the most successful, as well as the 
most difficult anti-malarial work, has been done in the Panama 
Canal Zone. Under the French administration this was a veri- 
table death trap. The tales told of the deaths are almost unbe- 
