60 PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL WORK AGAINST MOSQUITOES. 



drainage; railroads build embankments across them, and pay no 

 attention to the water courses except large creeks. The result is that 

 the marsh often becomes water-logged, and a good salt-hay meadow 

 is turned into a quagmire, and not even the owner protests. Rail- 

 roads cut sods from the meadows without inquiry as to the ownership 

 of the land, and holes of all sizes are scattered over the meadow, most 

 of them unconnected with tidewater, leaving stagnant pools in which 

 mosquitoes breed. 



He points out that all salt marsh, of what he names the third type, 

 which is that area above mean high tide and more or less completely 

 covered with vegetation, may be made to produce an income of from 

 $10 to $40 per acre annually, and that there are many hundreds of 

 acres that do produce such incomes. 



In considering the effect of drainage upon crops he gives a number 

 of interesting instances, three of which are quoted : 



The Newark meadow has an area of about 3,500 acres, and hay has been cut on parts 

 of it for many years. Before the 90's it was generally cut by men who wished to use 

 it as food for stock or as bedding, and some ditches were cut by those who noticed that 

 well-drained land produced much better crops than such as were either too dry or 

 water-logged. After the 90's a number of banana houses opened in Newark and created 

 a demand for salt hay to use in layering the ripening fruit. This demand led to the 

 cutting of more territory around the edges of the marsh, and $5 a ton was paid for the 

 crop. With the introduction and increase of the glass industry the demand for hay, 

 to be used as packing, increased steadily, and yet greater areas were cut; and in order 

 to get at these areas the cutting was done in the winter, after the meadow was frozen 

 solid, for at no other time could the product be carted off. And this was the condition 

 of affairs in 1904, when the mosquito drainage was done by the city, but under the 

 supervision of the writer. It might be said here that this drainage work was not 

 looked upon with any favor by owners and haymakers, the latter especially protesting 

 vigorously. One man threatened to smash the ditching machine, and yet another 

 promised to shoot the first man that set a spade into his property. The work went on, 

 nevertheless, and altogether nearly 400,000 feet of ditches went into this 3,500 acres. 



The results are as follows: On the Hamburg section, where in 1903, on an area 

 nearly one mile square, about 100 tons of hay were taken off during the winter, 250 

 tons were carted off in 1904, only one year later. The meadow has hardened up right 

 along, and in 1907 nearly the entire area was cut by machine, and a crop of 800 tons, 

 valued at $7.50 per ton, is harvested. Yet a worse place was the area, about one by 

 three-fourths of a mile, known as the Ebeling tract, little more than a sunken meadow 

 before 1904, from which no more than 30 tons of usable grass were obtained. After 

 the ditching the meadow began to rise and improve, and at present writing is at least 

 seven inches above its 1903 level, and correspondingly improved in texture. The crop 

 has increased from 30 tons to 600 tons, not quite so good as the other, but worth an 

 average of $7 per ton. Other areas which had theretofore produced nothing are now 

 being cut. The total cut in 1903 was between 1,000 and 1,200 tons, the 1907 crop will 

 come close to 3,000. And that is not the limit of productiveness. 



Forty years ago the Elizabeth marshes, containing about 2,200 acres, were quite 

 generally cut over and good crops of hay were obtained. There was considerable 

 ditching done, but it was not kept up, and as the marsh was crossed and cut up by the 

 railroads without regard to the drainage system, matters became gradually worse; the 

 meadow rotted, the black and salt grass was replaced by sedges and other useless stuff, 

 and less and less was cut each year until, for a decade past, little or nothing has been 



