Proceedings of Sixth Annual Meeting 39 



As a result of the cooperation of these concerns with the county 

 commission, Aedes cant at or and Aedes sollicitans were fewer in 

 numbers this past season than ever before. With the exception 

 of a small brood prior to June 15th, no broods escaped from any 

 of the miarshes. Night collections conducted throughout the season 

 showed practically no cantator or sollicitans on the wing. 



The attitude of the people toward the work has been generally 

 favorable. The professional and business men as a whole have 

 usually given the work their hearty cooperation, and a number 

 who were our enemies for the first few years have now turned 

 friends. It is generally known that the farmers and hay cutters 

 were in most cases decidedly against salt marsh drainage in the 

 early stages of the work, but lately their attitude has been changing 

 In only one case throughout the past season did the commission 

 meet with any opposition to ditching the marshes, and in this case 

 the party concerned did not know enough English to explain his 

 objections and the ditching was installed anyhow. In all other 

 cases, these men congratulated the commission on the progress 

 of the work, calling to mind conditions as they existed ten years 

 ago and comparing them with the conditions of today. 



During the fiscal year of 1918, $6,007.19 was expended for 

 mosquito extermination; $1,025.95 of this sum was used in main- 

 tenance work, $1,638.44 in new ditching and $187.53 in oiling. The 

 maintenance work cost 3-10 of a cent per foot, but the lowness of 

 this figure was offset by the high cost of hand ditching, this branch 

 of the work costing 4^ cents per foot. The cost would have been 

 greatly reduced had the power ditcher been used, but the Sanitary 

 Corps of the Raritan Ordnance Depot was allowed to take the 

 machine to complete the drainage of their 1,400 acres. As this 

 property is located so that escaping broods would infest the most 

 thickly populated section of the county, it was considered the best 

 course to allow them to complete the drainage of their territory 

 while the commission's force worked by hand in other sections. 



For the 1919 season the commission has already been assured that 

 the Raritan Ordnance Depot will continue to control their sec- 

 tion of the Raritan Mars-h. Assistance will be sought from the 

 authorities of the army post at Cheesequake Creek, formerly oc- 

 cupied by the T. A. Gillespie Loading Co., in caring for that par- 

 ticular marsh, and the commission plans to take care of the re- 



