N. J. Mosquito Exte:rmination Association 15 



the very site of this hotel experiment, with an assessed valuation 

 of $1,800,000. 



No one can estimate the number of people that has been driven 

 away and kept away from the shore by mosquitoes. As the work 

 of extermination has been gradual, so must it take time to con- 

 vince the would-be visitor that his complete enjoyment will no 

 longer be interfered with. 



Coincident with what we know as wonderful results has come 

 a sensitiveness to objectional things that is hard to overcome. 

 The modern guest now makes as much fuss over six mosquitoes 

 as they used to over six hundred. I think, sometimes, part of 

 the joy will be taken out of a guest's visit if he or she cannot, at 

 some time during their stay display a welted face or hand before 

 the sympathetic proprietor or have no opportunity to compare 

 their children's stockingless legs that look like pepper boxes. 



But fashions change, and perhaps the six modern mosquitoes 

 meet with fewer obstructions than the six hundred used to, for 

 we do not wear boots, nor high shoes, nor anything much now, 

 and the moon still shines the same way, and maybe it is all talk 

 anyway. 



However, since Dr. Smith got the mosquitoes' number in 1906, 

 and the county commissioners rung her up beginning with 19 12, 

 the value of seashore real estate of South Jersey took a new lease 

 of life, with results as you have heard them expressed in assessed 

 valuations. 



Monmouth County, which has never been bothered much with 

 mosquitoes owing to the absence of salt marsh during the period 

 between 1899 and 192 1, increased only 207 per cent, against an 

 average increase in the other coast counties of 589 per cent. And 

 we might as well credit some of this to mosquito work as well 

 as to any other thing. 



I should like to be able to tell you what each mosquito bite 

 has cost us in blood and money, but we know it is enough, and it 

 it high time this insect was in the class with others that well- 

 bred people have gotten rid of. 



It takes time, patience and money, and we have had too much 

 patience and too little time and money. We can prove to our 

 state representatives, if only by the figures showing the relative 

 importance of our shore resort industry to other industries, how 

 the valuation is nearly 10 per cent, of the total ratables, and 

 that they are growing faster by 100 per eent. than the rest, and it 

 is therefore good business to foster it, so we can use both hands 

 to develop with, instead of using one to fight mosquitoes. 



