Proceedings of Eighth Annual Meeting 41 



the other counties; and if Essex County had done the work alone 

 it would have required the expending of Essex County's money 

 in Morris in the upper part and Passaic in the lower part, which was 

 illegal, and held so by the board of freeholders. However, they 

 were so good under the mandatory features in observing the law 

 that they allowed it to go through and we were offered $50,000 to 

 spend on the Passaic River, but counsel stated the illegality of the 

 proceeding and it did not seem wise for us to use the money. They 

 passed it privately and we refused the appropriation and turned the 

 money back to the board of freeholders. 



Now that work resulted in education and an educational campaign. 

 It brought the matter to the attention of the three counties and it 

 may be the starting point of some future undertaking to relieve this 

 mosquito menace to the three counties. Of course it is a large prop- 

 osition and it probably will take some time to bring it out. However, 

 since 191 7 the sylvestris menace has not been as great as it was at 

 that time. 



The pipiens problem is pretty well handled and the salt marsh 

 problem of course is interfered with very much by construction work 

 and improvements on the Newark salt marsh and other salt marshes. 

 We are continually being interfered with by those improvements and 

 it requires a watchful eye to prevent those improvements from inter- 

 fering with our drainage. 



Dr. Ralph Hunt : The anti-mosquito campaign was carried on 

 in Essex County in 1920 along the lines followed in former years. 

 Active work began in the salt meadow districts on March 15th and 

 in the upland districts on March 22nd, and pushed as vigorously as 

 funds and labor conditions permitted. 



Unable to procure a sufficient labor force, we were also forced 

 to meet very abnormal weather conditions, which handicapped our 

 efforts considerably. 



On the salt marsh 21,000 feet of new ditches were installed 

 and 395,000 feet of existing ditches were cleaned. 



The meadows were patrolled according to an established plan and 

 3,915 gallons of oil were used to check the breeding found. 



In our upland districts, the plan to push vigorously the drainage 

 of the undrained areas was continued with good results. Many 

 former bad breeding places were eliminated and the maintenance 

 in good condition of the many places drained in previous years was 

 kept up, with the result that 485,705 feet of ditches in our upland 

 section were put in and kept in proper working order. 



