/ 



begin work. Altogether, throughout the State, something less 

 than twelve million feet of ditching have been dug. This repre- 

 sents in its total length a ditch which would reach from New 

 York to San Francisco. 



I cannot do better than to quote from some figures and facts 

 recently issued from the State Experiment Station by the en- 

 tomologists of that departmenit, Dr. Thomas J. Headlee and Mr. 

 Beckwith, as to what has been accomplished up to the present 

 time in mosquito control : 



''Approximately 95,000 acres of the salt miarsh have been 

 rendered reasonably free from mosquito breeding. This has 

 involved the cutting of 11,500,000 feet of ditches 10 inches 

 wide and 30 inches deep, or their equivalent, the building of 

 17.2 miles of dike, the, installation of 76 sluice and tide-gates 

 (representing 842 sq. ft. of cross section outlet opening), the 

 installation of one four and one twelve-inch centrifugal pump 

 and the connection of 100 acres of marsh with a large sewage 

 pumping plant. ' Approximately 50 per cent, of the reasonably 

 permanent fresh-zmter mosquito breeding pools, scattered over 

 315,000 acres of upland, has beeen permanently eliminated/' 



The work during the past year has been a greater advance- 

 ment perhaps than any other single year — 3,289,120 linear feet 

 of narrow 10 x 30 inch trenching or its equivalent has been in- 

 stalled in the salt marsh, two and one-half million feet of this 

 having been put in Atlantic County, 8,200 linear feet of dike 

 have been built, 3O' sluices and tide-gates have been constructed 

 and placed, affording 371 square feet of cross section outlet. 

 Approximately 95,000 acres of salt marsh have been patrolled 

 continuously throughout the mosquito^ season, and the mosqui- 

 toes breeding thereon destroyed in so far as possible. Approxi- 

 mately 315,000 acres of upland have been likewise patrolled, 

 a large amount of draining and filling completed, and, as nearly 

 as possible, all residual breeding destroyed. The best testimony 

 as to the efficiency of the work is the fact that not a single brood 

 of mosquitoes of any consequence has emerged during the past 

 season from the 95,000 acres which have been drained. 



