22 Proceedings oe Ninth Annuai, Meeting 



which will lead them to believe that mosquito extermination is no 

 visionary project, but a thing that can be accomplished. 



The best thing that Mr. Gies has set forth is this : in order 

 to secure success in mosquito control work, the commissions of 

 the various counties must interest the freeholders to inspect the 

 tide-gates, pumps, filling, draining, and ditching that the com- 

 missions are using their appropriations to complete. The sub- 

 ject of Mr. Gies' paper is, ''Effective and Practical Methods 

 of Education in Mosquito Control Work." What he has had 

 to say about the inspectors of the different counties taking out 

 the freeholders and demonstrating the activities of the commis- 

 sion is very practical. This suggestion of Mr. Gies is commend- 

 able and advisable and practical as an advertising program. 

 This last fall, the Bergen freeholders have been around with 

 their superintendent inspecting his work. Mr. Leslie invited 

 the board of freeholders, just as Mr. Gies suggests. There are 

 so many people who think that the mosquito breeds in the grass 

 and under bushes and trees, etc., that unless you state just how 

 they breed — this story that they have to have two inches of 

 water and that sort of thing — and unless yo-u take them to pools 

 and swamp-lands where you can get mosquitoes rising in clouds 

 and show how that can be overcome, your efforts will be in 

 vain. Mr. Leslie took us down to Little Ferry on the edge of 

 the meadow and showed us a ditch some three feet deep and 

 six feet wide — a splendid piece of workmanship with pick and 

 shovel, with the earth from the ditch thrown up on one side as 

 a dike and as straight as an arrow as far as the eye could reach. 

 He showed us a tide-gate that cost in the neighborhood of 

 $3,300.00. These are some of the activities taking place in our 

 county and we do not provide so much money either. I do not 

 boast of it, but this year the Bergen freeholders gave the com- 

 mission $30,000 or more. 



This trip of Mr. Leslie was a wonderful revelation to our 

 newspaper men and to the board of freeholders. It was posi- 

 tively illuminating and successful advertising. The inspection 

 was given publicity in all our county newspapers. Mr. Leslie 

 showed us the dike with the water on one side a foot or 18 

 inches deep and with no water on the thousand acres of marsh- 

 land and a thousand acres more of residential property that 

 formerly were infested with moscjuitoes, and now, by this method 

 of ditching and diking, will remain unmolested in the future. 

 That is effectual advertising. 



