56 N. J. Mosquito Extermination Association 



able to have our inspectors thus spend their full time on weekly- 

 inspections of the larger permanent breeding areas over the entire 

 county, and have been able to do with a much reduced force of in- 

 spectors during the past year because of the elimination of our yard 

 inspection work. 



During the year we have used the Martin Ditcher, a small drag 

 or plow manufactured by the Owensboro Ditcher and Grader Co., 

 Owensboro, Ky., and find that in certain kinds of work this ditcher 

 is effective and cheaper than hand labor. We have also used dyna- 

 mite in the construction of some large ditches, using the propaga- 

 tion method by the explosion of a series of shots by one charge, and 

 find that on certain classes of work the cost is reduced below that of 

 hand labor. 



As to the results of the work during the year, up until the fifteenth 

 of July, mosquitoes were extremely scarce ; after this began the 

 heavy rains which made 1919 the rainest season during the last 30 

 years. In spite of the adverse weather conditions, most of the 

 county was comparatively free from mosquitoes — the exception being 

 in the 10 per cent of the county immediately along the salt marshes 

 at the east end, where more than 90 per cent of our mosquitoes 

 seemed to be. Two breeding areas were largely responsible for the 

 salt-marsh mosquitoes in the county, one being the low area south 

 of Great Island, between Elizabeth and Newark, which is as yet 

 incompletely drained and from which many of the mosquitoes in 

 Elizabeth come, and the other area being the Carteret Meadow at 

 the Middlesex-Union County line, from which mosquitoes got in at 

 times during the summer to Rahway. The Middlesex County Mos- 

 Cjuito Commission was unable to get the power ditcher returned by 

 the Government (which had been used on the meadows near Camp 

 Raritan) in time for the ditching of this meadow before the summer 

 breeding season. We are glad to state, however, that the Middle- 

 sex County commission has already ditched out the worst of this 

 area and that our own commission will endeavor to complete the 

 drainage at Great Island this coming summer. 



To summarize the problem, we have about 60 per cent of our 

 inland elimination work done, that is, about 2,000 swamps drained 

 or filled, and we have the salt marshes in such excellent condition, 

 through diking, tide-gating and ditching, that not over 35 acres are 

 really serious breeding areas. We have the maintenance of a mil- 

 lion feet of salt-marsh ditching, of 18 tide-gates on the salt marsh 



