Proceedings of Sixth Annual Meeting 125 



The Attitude and Part of the New Jersey Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station in the Problem of Finishing the Mosquito 

 Drainage of the New Jersey Salt Marsh. 



BY DR. JACOB G. LIPMAN, PH.D., DIRECTOR OF THE STATE 

 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen : It would seem that mosquito 

 extermination in New Jersey is at the beginning of its third stage. 

 The first stage, perhaps, might be described as the stage of in- 

 vestigation and education; the second, that of organization; and 

 the third, as we have been told tonight, that of completion. There 

 is in my opinion, a fourth stage, of v/hich I wish to speak later. 



All pioneers are, in a sense, dreamers; and to our sorrow, the 

 dreams of the pioneers of mosquito extermination in New Jersey 

 were all too short. Some of them, particularly John B. Smith, 

 passed on to their well deserved rest. As an enthusiast, he was 

 willing to put up with a great deal, as every enthusiast is. But he 

 was happy in being also a practical person. And I rather think that 

 he saw the possibilities that would come out of a solution of this 

 problem. But nevertheless he found it hard to make progress, 

 and he had but few to support him in the early stages of the work. 

 It seemed to take time to impress education on the minds of the 

 many, and the second stage in the mosquito work in New Jersey 

 did not come — this period of organization — until perhaps four or 

 five years after Dr. Smith, himself, and his associates had gotten 

 the work well under way. 



In this period of organization, the enrolling, of men in the 

 societies to which your President referred a moment ago, the creating 

 of public sentiment, but above all the creating of the machinery 

 for dealing with a state-wide problem, I think that the stage is 

 ^happily past. Your presence here tonight, the membership of this 

 association, the serious consideration that the mind of the state 

 is giving to mosquito extermination, all show that the organization 

 has been effective, and that within this period of organization work 

 it has been going forward and much work has been done, a large 

 part of the salt marsh is no longer within the breeding area and 

 is no longer the source of large flights of mosquitoes. 



And when we come to the third stage, with a well defined senti- 

 ment of early completion of the experimental work, we are con- 



