43 



that shows that as the work progresses the mosquitoes are 

 diminished. 



When we first undertook this work, and when I- was appointed 

 on this Commission, I must confess I didn't know anything 

 about it. I was like a baby learning his A, B, C's, and as Dr. 

 Hunt has so well said, we are not only educating the public, but 

 we are educating ourselves. We have learned a great deal in 

 the last three years or four years about the mosquito problem, 

 and not a man on our Commission had ever given it a thought, 

 or paid any attention to it. When we looked over the work and 

 saw what we were up against, we were more or less discouraged. 

 We were discouraged on account of the vast extent of it. We 

 did not feel that within five or six years we would 'be able to 

 make enough impression for anybody to notice it at all, and yet, 

 after two years' salt-marsh work, we have commendations every 

 now and then from all* around us. An editorial from the At- 

 lantic City Press of August fourteenth, 191 5, one day after our 

 first great influx of mosquitoes : 



"Not in the memory of the oldest citizen has there been a season cursed 

 with so few mosquitoes, as far as Atlantic City and county are concerned. 

 The dearth of the pest is amazing. Chinese punk sales have fallen to 

 nothing in this city. 



"Of course we are not foolish enough to attribute this solely to the work 

 of the mosquito exterminators. But we do believe that their work has had 

 much to do with it, especially in eliminating rain barrels and stagnant water 

 in back yards, where the domestic species of mosquito is bred, and in draining 

 the salt marshes within a radius of five or six miles of Atlantic City on all 

 sides. 



"It may be that we ought to be 'knocking wood' for -fear the land breezes 

 of the late summer and early fall will bring the large-sized salt-marsh 

 mosquitoes from the undrained meadows along the Great Egg Harbor and 

 Mullica Rivers. But even if this occurs the incident will merely go to prove 

 that the work of the Mosquito Commission has been effective and that when 

 the Commission has been able to drain all meadow land in Atlantic County 

 the mosquito and Atlantic City shall part company forever. Speed the day." 



We have had numerous comments in this fashion, not only 

 from the city papers but from the county papers, so, therefore, 

 in about the latter part of October the Commission sent out 

 letters to a number of prominent citizens asking the three fol- 

 lowing questions : 



