Proceedings of Eighth Annual Meeting 117 



ance cost estimates by juggling figures in the office is like the man 

 who inspects for salt marsh breeding by walking along the rail- 

 road track and gazing at the meadows — he may guess right but the 

 chances are he'll guess wrong. Maintenance is of absolute impor- 

 tance to successful mosquito control. It must not be carelessly 

 done. It must not be neglected. And in carrying out maintenance 

 measures you learn once more the paramount importance of plan- 

 ning carefully and scientifically the original work and constructing 

 it with due regard to good workmanship. Maintenance on an area 

 which was well drained the first time is a simple matter easily 

 accomplished within a short time. But when you try to maintain a 

 section on which the initial system was faulty — you are in trouble 

 from the start and maintenance costs rise rapidly. This is especially 

 true of tide-gate work. To repair a tide-gate that was hastily and 

 carelessly built is a most difficult undertaking and one that is costly 

 as well. With the work increasing in volume and quantity so con- 

 stantly, maintenance has now assumed a most important part. The 

 time is rapidly approaching when mechanical means must be utilized 

 to clean the salt marsh ditching systems and a machine must be 

 devised that will make it possible to do this work at a cost of from 

 i-ioth of a cent to i-i5th of a cent a foot. Hand labor is too 

 expensive and too scarce to make it practical to hope to maintain 

 the vast ditching systems especially in South Jersey by that means 

 and a ditch cleaning machine appears to be the only solution. 



To sum up then : the practical drainage system for mosquito 

 control is the one that so drains an area that no matter what the 

 condition of tide or weather, the man in the field does not have to 

 S. O. S. The publicity man to gently inform the public that ''be- 

 cause of heavy rains, unusually hot weather, etc. a brood is about 

 to emerge despite the earnest and untiring effort of the county 

 mosquito extermination commission to prevent such emergence." 

 The type of drainage best adapted to produce such a condition is 

 directly dependent on the geographical, hydrological, typographical, 

 meteorological, and biological elements of the section under con- 

 sideration as determined from a comprehensive and intensive study. 

 The cost of installation varies widely according to kind of drainage 

 to be used, type of meadow to be drained, local conditions to be 

 overcome, market price of labor, etc. Any system that does not pro- 

 duce results is expensive no matter what it costs and that system 

 which is followed by complete drainage and the eradication of all 

 breeding is cheap even tho it takes all or a large part of the funds 



