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A yachting" party, of which the speaker was a member, spent 

 a day on the waters opposite Atlantic City last summer during 

 the mosquito season without encountering a sing'le mosquito. 

 This is not a fish story, probably the birds were hiding from 

 their sworn enemies. The fish were not biting. Possibly the 

 absence of mosquitoes was the cause. This would coincide with 

 the views of a German farmer's wife not far from Atlantic City. 

 The season was backward in 191 5. She said, "You mosquito 

 exterminators are going to drive us all to starvation. Nothing 

 we put into the ground grows till miosquitoes come." Just how 

 the mosquito affects the germination of the seed and the growing 

 crop is a new problem for the scientific agronomist. We are 

 taught that soil bacteria and nodules to store them are requisites 

 for crop production. We know the insect produces nodules on 

 the human plant. Perhaps we are yet to learn that these are 

 necessary to health and comfort by selection of the proper brand. 



But these are mere pleasantries, and rather foreign to the topic. 

 However, they go to show that the diminution of mosquitoes is 

 quite as noticeable inland as along the shore. And, furthermore, 

 we have learned that the pests that made life a burden in the 

 farming and cranberry growing sections are of the same brand, 

 wafted up with favorable breezes from the salt meadows, and 

 not the supposed necessary evil connected with such enterprise. 

 In my own experience I find we are without mosquitoes except 

 when favorable winds bring them up the streams, and they all 

 bear the stripes. 



We find that waters flowing through cedar swamps and circu- 

 lating through cranberry plantations do not breed mosquitoes. 

 This fact should serve to enthuse every citizen of the county 

 and prompt them to give every encouragement to the business of 

 salt-marsh drainage. As bearing on the present status of mo- 

 squito control, nothing impresses me more than the change in 

 public sentiment. Original unbelievers and doubters have be- 

 come its most ardent supporters. 



To sum' it up, will say that the end is in sight. With eternal 

 vigilance, which is the price of liberty, we look for a permanent 

 elimination of the pest. 



