44 N. J. Mosquito Extermination Association 



liabilities met with in trying to prevent mosquito annoyance within 

 the territory covered by the commission's work. 



Our liabilities and problems in mosquito-control work are expected 

 to be ascertainable, but the unknown liabilities are the big problems, 

 caused by unforeseen abnormal weather conditions which make, in 

 mosquito-control work, as Burns said, "The best-laid schemes of 

 mice and men gang aft agley." 



Briefly stated, our known problem is to reduce mosquito annoyance 

 below the point of complaint by the people residing within the terri- 

 tory covered by the commission's work. This territory comprises 

 an area of 36 square miles, or 18 per cent of the area of Passaic 

 County, containing a population of 245,000, or 90 per cent of the 

 population of the county, and consists of the cities of Paterson, 

 Passaic and Clifton, and the boroughs of Totowa, Haledon, Prospect 

 Park, Hawthorne and West Paterson. A large part of this terri- 

 tory is suburban or unimproved outlying land in which the usual 

 mosquito-breeding conditions are found, consisting of pools, ponds, 

 swamps, ditches, and obstructed water courses. These conditions 

 do not present any serious problem in mosquito-control work, as 

 they are out in the open, and can be located, listed and cared for in 

 a systematic way. The possibility of their elimination by some 

 method that can be applied to such conditions makes feasible almost 

 complete control of any breeding that may occur. 



BACK YARDS 



Back-yard inspection for the elimination of the small containers 

 that are generally found breeding is a phase of control work in large 

 centers of population that has probably presented to us a greater 

 problem than any other part of the work within our territory. We 

 have approximately 30,000 back yards and 1,000 manufacturing 

 establishments where hundreds of containers such as barrels, vats, 

 tubs, etc., which with their daily changing conditions are either 

 potential or actual mosquito breeders. Lack of cooperation on the 

 part of the people and the owners of manufacturing estabhshments 

 makes- the problem of pipiens annoyance a peculiarly difficult one 

 to handle from a mosquito-control standpoint. It also makes the 

 work more costly than it should be, yet with these apparently un- 

 avoidable conditions, it is a part of the work that cannot be neglected, 

 if we are to reduce the pipiens concerts of the bedroom chorus that 

 eventually reach our office as complaints of mosquito annoyance. 



