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power rather than the acre will continue to be used as the 

 measure of efficiency. But it must also remain true that in the 

 eastern States, New Jersey among them, the nearby centers of 

 consumption, the high price of land, the growing demand for 

 produce of high quality will force specialization and the adoption 

 of more intensive methods of cultivation. Indeed, to a great 

 extent this has already come to pass in our own State. In 

 discussing the agricultural utiHzation of the tide marshes of 

 New Jersey, we are reminded that there are 15,000,000 acres 

 of swamp land in the North Atlantic States, and that there are 

 3,000,000 acres of swamp land in a single State like Wisconsin. 

 These countless acres in the country at large are rich in plant 

 food, and will readily lend themselves to intensive as well as 

 extensive tillage. For this resaon those of us who will en- 

 courage the improving of the marsh lands of New Jersey will 

 not only render a public service, but may find their efforts very 

 profitable to themselves. 



Mosquito extermination would be an incident rather than the 

 end of this particular enterprise. It is to be hoped that, as 

 members of the Mosquito Extermination Association of New 

 Jersey, you will avail yourselves of every opportunity to do 

 something in a tangible way towards the utilization of the marsh 

 lands of New Jersey, that the cost of ditching may be reduced, 

 mosquito extermination encouraged, the acreage of cultivated 

 land in New Jersey increased, and provision made for maintain- 

 ing the fertility of the upland by means of the organic matter 

 provided by the tide marsh. 



European agriculture of a hundred years ago was built partly 

 on the fact that every farmer endeavored to have some meadow- 

 land, the fertility of which was used for maintaining the pro- 

 ductive power of the upland ; and a great deal of the European 

 agriculture of to-day is based on this same fact. The uplands 

 of southern New Jersey, being sandy or gravelly in character, 

 are limited in their supply of plant food and require a great deal 

 of organic matter for their best development. They would gain 

 much if the tide marshes were reclaimed and the fertility stored 

 in them were used in the improvement of the adjoining uplands. 



