Procke^dings of Fifth Annual Meeting 95 



ing on the job or not, but too often slighted work is only dis- 

 covered by the appearance of a nuisance which is sometimes 

 difficult to correct immediately, and infinitely harder to ex- 

 plain to the afflicted populace, and besides this, the memory 

 thereof lingers long in the minds of those stung. It is true of 

 mosquito work as of any other, the good accomplished is soon 

 forgotten, the mistakes and failures ever remembered. 



I want to state most emphatically that I am wholly out of 

 sympathy with the idea of mosquito control. I believe with all 

 my heart, mind and strength, fromi my toes to my hair, every 

 pulsation of my heart proclaims my absolute uncompromising 

 belief in the entire extermination, complete annihilation of the 

 salt-marsh mosquito. I can accept nothing less, and I plan for 

 and work for that end 365 days in the year with every particle 

 of energy that I possess. 



There is nothing mysterious about mosquito-extermination 

 work. It is not difficult to accomplish. There is no secret about 

 it whatsoever. Had there been, I would have had a patent on it 

 . long ago. All that is necessary is common sense, experience, 

 knowledge of conditions, a thorough belief in its possibilities, 

 a martyr spirit and hard work. 



The best and only textbook that I know of is the marsh itself. 

 A successful mosquito exterminator must learn to know the feel 

 of the marsh. He must be able to judge its seepage possibilities, 

 its probable solidification after drainage, and, as every marsh 

 differs from another, this can be learned only by experience and 

 the possession of the other qualifications previously mentioned. 



Mosquito-elimination work ought not to be confounded with 

 reclamation work. It is true that reclamiation work will also 

 eliminate mosquitoes if thoroughly done, but as such work for 

 most communities is prohibitively expensive and a semi-recla- 

 mation job is worse than useless, being neither fish, flesh nor 

 fowl, nor good red herring, I am not in favor of wasting money 

 on it. 



I am thoroughly convinced after 17 years in this work that 

 the cheapest and most practical method of getting rid of mos- 

 quitoes is by a properly-constructed ditching system. It follows 



