Proceedings of Seventh Annual Meeting 127 



Mr. Miller : But you will have to eliminate mosquitoes so that 

 a man can work and clear that land. 



Mr. Gaskill: That is the text of every sermon I preach. 



Mr. Neilson : I have often had an opportunity of saying that 

 the sandy land can be redeemed by clearing and that it can be made 

 of value. In regard to the swamp land, I remember when I was in 

 Holland forty years ago seeing great areas of land which was like 

 our swamp drained below the water level and damned. That land, 

 if I remember right, was in pasture and worth about $300 to $400 

 an acre, forty years ago. 



Now we have a tremendous population here today, and with the 

 present value of food our swamp land, if it could be properly drained 

 and cared for, ought easily enough to be worth several hundred 

 dollars an acre, because it is very rich. If it is properly fertilized 

 the value is very much greater than I think has been assumed. 



Secretary Headlee: Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: I always 

 like to see left with the association more or less of a defintie program 

 of procedure. We are here to find out the best method of bringing 

 the mosquito in New Jersey under control. That is our purpose. 



Now that bears more or less directly a relationship to reclamation. 

 We have this two million acres of woodland ; we have a half-million 

 acres or more of farm-land in these eight South Jersey counties 

 that is at present selling at very low prices, an average of say $54 

 an acre. I am not talking in this case about land that is not ready 

 for the plow ; I mean land that is ready for the plow. Land in the 

 Middle West is selling for $175 to $500 an acre. Land bringing 

 $300 and $400 an acre in the Middle West is no better from the 

 standpoint of net return than our land right here, and I think not so 

 good. 



Now what is the reason for this great diflFerence between the value 

 of farm-lands in New Jersey which are less than a hundred miles 

 from the greatest consuming centers in the country, and the lands in 

 the Middle West, which are a thousand miles from market. The 

 reason for this difiference becomes apparent when we find that cheap 

 fertile land is largely coincident with the bane of infested zones. 

 When we pass from the comparatively mosquitoless zones of the 

 state into the mosquito zones we can tell it by the improvements 

 with which the farms are furnished. The houses are without paint 

 in the large proportion of cases ; they are small, comparatively 

 poorly furnished ; the fences have fallen down, the orchards have 



