120 N. J. Mosquito Extermination Association 



The Attitude and the Part of the State Mosquito Extermination 

 Association Toward Finishing the Drainage of the New 

 Jersey Salt Marsh. 



BY ROBERT F. ENGLE, PRESIDENT, N. J. MOSQ. EXTER. ASSOC. 



Whether or not there is more intelligence in the upper part cf 

 the state, may be a debatable question, but certain it is that the 

 first organized effort toward mosquito elimination had its birth 

 in the Orange Mountains. It is easy to understand how some 

 admirers of a suburban home in northern New Jersey, with visions 

 of lazy evenings on front porches, would be disillusioned when 

 they found they had to share them with the pesky visitors from the 

 marshes, and which the real estate agent had not included in his 

 list of attractions. They were peeved about it. 



A group of men of South Orange sent for Dr. L. O. Howard, 

 of Washington, D. C, without doubt the foremost mosquito ex- 

 pert in the United States, to come and tell them what to do about it. 



He so enthused them that they raised some money and started 

 work. Fortunately or unfortunately, the difference between a fresh 

 and a salt water mosquito was not then known. That has all been 

 found out since, and though these pioneers destroyed a lot of breed- 

 ing places near their homes, a fresh and vigorous lot of mosquitoies 

 appeared from time to time. 



Then Dr. John B. Smith, the State Entomologist, announced as 

 the result of his investigations, that certain species bred in salt 

 water only, and though found on the wing 30 to 40 miles away 

 from any salt water, were not produced from larvae in fresh water, 

 and that any section, no matter how clear of breeding places, which 

 was subject to flights from distant meadows, would find local ef- 

 forts almost useless. 



Considerable agitation followed, during which New Jersey became 

 the butt of ridicule, not only from its neighboring states, but from 

 its own people as well. Bryan, Barnum, John Wanamaker or 

 somebody said .''get people talking about you, it doesn't matter 

 what they say." 



Now ridicule is sometimes the best advertisement a project can 

 have, and in 1906 a law was passed, authorizing the appropriation 

 of $3.50,000, not more than $50,000 of which could be appropriated 

 in any one year, and the sponsors of the bill considered the State 



