52 N. J. Mosquito Extermination Association 



which we are carrying on this work and perhaps it is an asset rather 

 than a Hability. 



President Rider : I am very glad to have this explanation from 

 Dr. Headlee. I think he is entirely exonerated for the conditions 

 at New Brunswick. He has made an explanation which I think is 

 entirely satisfactory to all. 



Next is Ocean County, our former ex-President, Robert F. Engle. 

 We will hear from him next. 



Mr. Robert F. Engle : I have an idea that not everybody here 

 knows just where Ocean County is. It is quite a good sized county, 

 and it has a good many things in it and some bad things — a good 

 many things we do not want, and some of those we are getting rid 

 of. We happen to be very nearly in the center of the state. Those 

 of you who came down here from the northern end of the state 

 in motors realized how pleasant it was to ride over some beautiful 

 gravel roads. Most of that gravel road, except a few miles in Atlan- 

 tic County, belongs to Ocean County, and most of the time that is the 

 most delightful road to ride over there is in the state, not barring 

 the cement. 



We have got a tremendous stretch here of seashore property, 

 about 40,000 acres of salt marsh, which is a little more than our 

 share. Just how all that salt marsh was unloaded on Ocean County 

 I am not enough of a historian to tell, but we are doing the best 

 we can with it. It is an asset as well as a liability. The upper part 

 of the county, adjoining Monmouth County, was early attacked by 

 the state as being the easiest for them to get at with the meagre 

 amount of money the state had given them ; and later, when we got 

 awake and got some money, we have carried on the work. 



I would say that we have a little more than two-thirds of our 

 initial drainage done. Now it might have been necessary to explain 

 what initial drainage is to this convention some years ago, but from 

 these papers and experiences it is easy to see that you know what 

 initial drainage is. And you also know that a large part of the 

 work has to come after the initial drainage is done. I suppose that 

 if you would take the ordinary child and make him understand what 

 he had to go through in order to make a man of himself he would 

 go out somewhere and commit suicide right off, he would be so 

 discouraged. So if we had known when the late John B. Smith 

 came across with his $350,000 appropriation to clean up the whole 

 state of New Jersey of the mosquito and if those embryonic mos- 

 quito fighters of that time had known what was before them they 



