Proceedings of Sixth Annual Meeting 



37 



acres which we have in a series of four swamps. We are engaged 

 at present, on account of the mild weather, in continuing the drain- 

 age of the second one of those swamps and will work as far as 

 our funds will permit this year, and I hope before another year 

 or two we will have completed the entire acreage of this fresh 

 water marsh in Union County, which throws out mosquitoes over 

 a large area into Elizabeth, Rahway, Summit, Plainfield, Westfield, 

 and even over into Essex County, occasionally intO' Irvington and 

 a small portion of Newark. 



So in Union the conditions are favorable. The public sentiment 

 is behind the work. We are getting our appropriation for the 

 eighth summer and I think with the appropriation, which is $26,000, 

 we are boring into the work effectively and keeping everything we 

 have done in the past, right up to grade. 



President Engle: Any discussion as to the information given 

 by Captain Gies? If not we will proceed to Middlesex County, 

 by Mr. Lawrence W. Schenck, Superintendent, New Brunswick. 



Middlesex County 



BY LAWRENCE W. SCHENCK, SUPERINTENDENT 



A_t the beginning of the 1918 season in Middlesex County, the 

 900,000 odd feet of ditches already installed in the various sec- 

 tions of marsh land were in much the same condition as in pre- 

 vious years. The storm tides of the winter and early spring had 

 caused en-ragh damage to necessitate overhauling all the systems, 

 but no further trouble was anticipated. Plowever, the storm tide 

 of the week of April 8, which caused so much damage along the 

 Jersey coast, did not pass by the county marshes and the main- 

 tendance work was increased to such an extent as to delay its com- 

 pletion until early June. The tide was beneficial in one respect, as 

 it destroyed, with the exception of a few traces, a very heavy brood 

 of Aedes Cant at or which had been developing since the 19th of 

 March. 



From early June until the funds were exhausted in September, 

 the time was spent on the installation of hand ditching and 35,051 

 linear feet of 10 by 30 ditches were dug in the various county 

 marshes, as follows: Raritan Marsh, 14,513; Sewaren Marsh, 

 8,096; Woodbridge Creek Marsh, 4,567; South Am4x>y Marsh, 



