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you cannot lay down hard and fast rules for the elimination of 

 mosquito breeding areas. Three hundred feet to the acre may be 

 enough ditching for some areas, but it is not enough in all cases. 

 Cat-tail areas may not breed under certain conditions, but they 

 will under others. An area considered safe in 19 16 may breed 

 heavily in 191 7. All of which means that the only way to effect- 

 ively control any area of salt marsh is to (place the estimated 

 amount of ditching and then study the effect which this has on 

 the area in question. The cutting of this ditching does not finish 

 the work. It is but the first step of elimination. N'o system 

 of drainage is absolutely self -operating. It requires constant 

 care and improvement, and even though a maintenance clause be 

 included in the contract it is diffcult tO' get the contractor to take 

 sufficient interest in the welfare of the work to perform this 

 maintenance in a proper manner to prevent mosquitoes from 

 maturing, and if the cdntractor does not do so, how can he be 

 forced to? Suppose the original contract is for $8,000.00, with 

 a maintenance charge of $i,200'.oo a year. During the second 

 summer the Association becomes dissatisfied, and they are still 

 getting mosquitoes, and to them conditions are as bad as before 

 any work was done. To break the contract now, after the bulk 

 of the money has been paid, is but slight satisfaction and does 

 not give them the result which they desire. To put the contractor 

 under bond and sue him on that in case results are not as guaran- 

 teed, presents so many difficulties that the average Commission 

 or Association will not hear to it. So that experience has proved 

 that contracting by area costs too much and that the enforcement 

 of the provisions of a contract of this type is almost impossible. 

 We find, therefore, an increased tendency to adopt the quantity 

 contract, which is specific in terms and which places the respon- 

 bility for the successful operation of the system devised directly 

 on the shoulders of the employees of the Commission or Associa- 

 tion whose whole interest is to serve the people whom they rep- 

 resent, and not on those of the contractor who is actuated by 

 motives of financial gain. It is the rational form of contract 

 under our present type of organizations ainid it should entirely 

 supersede the other form. 



