REMEDIES AGAINST MOSQUITOES 209 



of marsh-land or meadow, which would become periodically 

 overflowed with water in the summer and a tremendous breeding- 

 ground for mosquitoes, and this plague to the town continued 

 until about 1890-91, when a party from Bridgeport, Conn., pur- 

 chased a large section of the meadows and began to protect them 

 by a dike, both on the north and south ends, which shut out the 

 water. In addition to this, numerous drain ditches were made 

 which helped to carry the water away. The result of this work 

 made the land perfectly dry and spongy, so that after a rain no 

 pools collected on the surface of the meadow and the creation of 

 the mosquitoes was prevented. The transformation was so re- 

 markable that people outside the town would hardly believe that 

 it had been effected, and a year or two later tlie town voted a 

 special appropriation of $2,000 to the party who undertook to 

 build the dike and render the meadows mosquito-proof. It had 

 also the effect of placing on the market a large tract of land ele- 

 vated from the sound, for residences, and as many as twenty- five 

 sunnner residences have been built upon this land bordering on 

 the sound, and the number is increasing each year. They are free 

 from mosquitoes, so that the operation shows the economy and 

 the benefit that will result by using some means for eliminating 

 the mosquito-breeding pools. 



As has been pointed out on earlier pages, nearly all of 

 our mosquitoes breed exclusively in fresh water, and none 

 of the forms which inhabit the United States, so far as 

 ascertained, will breed in sea-water. Therefore, under 

 certain peculiar conditions, another remedy is indicated 

 by this fact, namely, that near the seashore, by a certain 

 amount of ditching, the water of ponds may be converted 

 from fresh to salt. A rather large-scale operation of this 

 kind was conducted a few years ago at Virginia Beach, 



