4 2 



the State helped us out to the extent of 13^,000 feet. Our own 

 county put in 428,367 feet. In 19 16 our local Commission cut 

 about 825,100 feet. All told, the State has cut aibout 436,000 

 feet and the county 1,657,832 feet, making a grand total of 

 2,093,832 feet, which has eliminated breeding over about 12,000 

 acres. 



As was told you by Mr. Eaton, it is estimated that there are 

 about 20,000 acres that do not need drainage, low-lying little 

 islands back of Atlantic City and other places, which the in- 

 coming tide completely overflows. That kind of an island or 

 marsh does not need drainage. It brings in enough of the little 

 fish to eat up all of the mosquitoes present, if any. 



We have to the north of us and to the south of us our main 

 mosquito-breeding areas. It might be well to mention a news- 

 paper article that appeared the other day in one of the Phila- 

 delphia papers and in the Atlantic City papers, to the effect that 

 certain individuals had bought up large areas of salt-marsh 

 land over in the neighborhood of Mays Landing. There was 

 some little local excitement when it was stated that this was 

 bought by the government for the purpose of establishing muni- 

 tion plants, but it turned out that a syndicate had been organ- 

 ized — that they had realized that the output of salt hay had 

 doubled since the mosquito drainage work had been done over 

 there — to go into the business of marketing salt hay on a large 

 scale. 



This last summer, up to August thirteenth, Atlantic City was 

 remarkably free from mosquitoes, although it was admitted 

 that it was one of the worst mosquito summers for many years. 

 The results, therefore, up to the present time, have been more or 

 less encouraging. We have felt that we are accomplishing some- 

 thing. In previous years mosquitoes were very troublesome in 

 this community in May. Even our first year's work, ditching 

 and draining the meadows just adjacent to Atlantic City, pre- 

 vented the mosquitoes from being troublesome in 19 14 until the 

 nineteenth day of July. This last summer mosquitoes were not 

 troublesome until the thirteenth day of August, and we think 



