N. J. Mosquito Extermination Association 7 



a loss caused by the pestilent mosquito. If I seem unsympathetic 

 in so calculating the losses without referring to the painful suf- 

 fering of the patients and the misery and distress of their fami- 

 lies, it is only that we lose sight of the economic value when our 

 feelings of sympathy and concern for the sufferers are foremost. 

 It is all so useless and unnecessary, for the mosquito can be exter- 

 minated. 



There is not time in this short talk tO' give you the details of 

 the success of mosquito control by all the commissions, but as 

 the success of my own County of Hudson is typical of all, I vshall 

 take it as an example. 



The Hudson County Commission has reduced the pest from 

 100 per cent, in 19 14 to less than 5 per cent, (these are my 

 figures) in 1921. Porch screens that were put up every summer 

 on miles of streets are now discarded as unnecessary. I have 

 hunted high and low to find a mosquito canopy and have failed. 

 A mosquito canopy is a tent made of mosquito netting that hangs 

 from the ceiling over the bed completely enveloping it. It was 

 the custom to drive the mosquitoes out of the canopy before re- 

 tiring, and many a night has the angry buzzing of thwarted 

 mosquitoes outside the canopy kept one awake. The canopies 

 were formerly an ornament and necessity in thousands of bed- 

 rooms. They have disappeared and seem to be as extinct as the 

 diplodicus. They were not always effective, as the mosquitoes 

 would "park" under the bed, and an unwary foot stretched out 

 in slumber would let through the hungry horde. 



The economic results are being seen in every direction. The 

 great stretches of meadows from Bergen Hill to Arlington and 

 Newark are being occupied more and more every year by fac- 

 tories. Why ? Many of you have wondered as you crossed these 

 stretches of meadows so near New York and so near Newark 

 why, with two navigable rivers with direct outlets to the sea, 

 they were not so occupied years ago. The cause was the presence 

 of mosquitoes. Every attempt at locating an industry was aban- 

 doned simply because these factories could not keep their help. 

 They were so fiercely attacked by mosquitoes both in going and 

 coming to work that they could not and would not continue to go 

 to work under such conditions. If you could have seen the thick 

 clouds of mosquitoes swirl around a wagon and driver on the 

 turnpike as I have, you would not blame the workers. All this 

 has been almost entirely done away with by the work of this 

 commission. There was no trouble last summer, and since the 

 success of our efforts has been demonstrated as a definite fixed 

 result, more and more enterprises are coming into these regions, 



