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The result which it has been demonstrated can be obtained 

 by careful and complete ditching systems in the salt marsh are 

 so near our ideas of mosquito control that we should all feel 

 encouraged to push to completion the drainage of the salt marsh 

 of New Jersey. 



Pre:side:nt Darnai,!, — Gentlemen, this valuable and very 

 practical paper is open now for general discussion. Are there 

 any questions or discussions? 



President Darnai,i,: — The next paper on the program is a 

 symposium on ''The Maintenance of Salt-Marsh Drainage 

 Systems," and I will call on Mr. William Delaney, of Jersey 

 City, first. 



The Maintenance of Salt=Marsh Drainage Systems. 



BY WII^IvIAM DElvANKY, SU-PERINTENDKNT I^OR THE HUDSON 

 COUNTY MOSQUITO EXTERMINATION COMMISSION. 



In considering the subject of the maintenance of salt-marsh 

 drainage, many questions present themselves — questions brought 

 to the front automatically with the advancement of mosquito 

 reduction work in this State. If those questions are not 

 answered with a degree of accuracy at the present time, I do 

 not think that the chief inspectors should be censured, because, 

 as you understand, in our anxiet}^ to do things, mistakes may 

 have occurred. These questions, however, are here and they will 

 not down. The rapidly increasing interest manifested in mos- 

 quito reduction work in this State points to the time when chief 

 inspectors will be required to write into reports and papers, 

 something more tangible than mere generalities — ^something 

 more than the general statement that we have made in our 

 county ''a million or two million feet of ditches covering a given 

 area of salt-marsh meadows." 



Assuming that, by replying to the subject under discussion, 

 we are expected to state the percentage of efficiency rendered 

 by our total number of feet of ditches, and it seems to me that 

 only upon the efficiency of our drainage system can we place 



