Proceedings of Sixth Annual Meeting 



15 



be beyond their financial ability, they were astounded to discover 

 that the annual cost of screening houses and screen repairs greatly 

 exceeded the cost of mosquitO' elimination. They did not realize the 

 fact that it often costs a community, and the citizens of it personally, 

 much more to support a mosquitO' nuisance than to have an absence 

 of mosquitoes. 



The president of a large association of cotton mill interests has 

 stated that the elimination of mosquitoes near the mill properties 

 has paid a higher return on the money expended than any other 

 investment that corporation has ever made. 



There are one or two interesting points that I might cover with 

 regard to the financial returns from money invested in mosquito 

 control work. Some of our early mosquito work was done at 

 Havana, following the Spanish-American war. I remember very 

 well the suburb of Havana, known as Vedado, which some of you 

 may have been to recently. Property values there were say $200 

 or $300 a lot, and not much sale in that area. After the drainage 

 operations were completed the prices just went impossibly high. 

 There is no property there following that work that can be had 

 for less than $5,000 a lot. It is just an illustration of the results 

 achieved by mosquito- work. 



Incidentally with these increased prices the city has got a tre- 

 mendous income, and I think I am very conservative when I state 

 that Havana is getting back every week far more than her entire 

 drainage control scheme cost her originally. She is getting one 

 hundred per cent interest on the work that she did. 



The city of Erie, Pennsylvania, had a very interesting problem. 

 The health officer there wanted to get rid of mosquitoes. There 

 was not as much public interest as there ought to be. But finally, 

 as mosquitoes were quite numerous everywhere, the electric rail- 

 road company consented to drain their property and the park out 

 in the suburbs. That place had been commonly a mosquito infested 

 place. As the summer went along the people who went out to the 

 park came back with the report that there were no more mosquitoes 

 out there at the park, and the crowds began going out until the 

 trolleys couldn't carry them. Then the people became quite angry 

 over the fact that they could get rid of the mosquitoes out there at 

 the park and did not do so in the city ; and in fact the health officer 

 had quite a lot of complaints from people in the city because there 



