8 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
Sept. 1, 1916. 
Again the Mosquito Agitates 
Editor North Shore Breeze: 
AN we forget the day? No never, when in our garden 
bordering the woods of a neighbor we heard a sound 
of many voices, loud, strident, prolonged, as if a murder- 
ous game were in progress and a stench—pardon the 
word—imost consuming flooded the air. Turning to the 
gardener we asked the cause of this babel. 
“Killing skeeters in the wood, Marm that’s all.” 
“And the hogsheads yonder, what are they?” 
“Crude oil, Marm, for the skeeters.” 
Crude oil indeed! So crude we fled the garden. 
And now we are cordially invited to immerse ourselves 
again in the pandemonium—‘‘a remedy far worse than 
the disease’—and submit our woods and rills to crude 
oil machinations—those wood paths we trod with so much 
pleasure, regaining life and strength from health giving 
odors of bracken, pine and bayberry—all these delights 
given over to crude oil because the mosquito pricks! 
No, let us rather cover ourselves with crude oil and be- 
come immune to the mosquito, for such a process would 
free us from its attacks and leave us the pleasure of nature. 
If the mosquito be so very dangerous to life as some would 
have us belive, how comes it that men and women have 
lived and do live on the North Shore 84 and 100 years 
and children enjoy good health since the majority of them 
succeed these ancient forbears? The extermination of 
the mosquito in tropical climates, ‘breeding grounds of 
poison and disease, is wise, but the North Shore is not 
the tropics, although at times we are so impressed. 
Persons conversant with this extermination process 
tell us the oil gun must be constant use to insure the 
permanent absence of the mosquito. To destroy in our 
woods the undergrowth and pools we too must install 
the oil gun; otherwise the mosquito will prove a greater 
pest as woods this season testify where the process used 
last summer has not been renewed this. 
But what of the beautiful marshes frequented by our 
game birds in autumn? Are these valuable birds to be 
sacrificed to crude oil and allowed to seek elsewhere more 
hospitable feeding grounds where crude oil is tabooed? 
Surely there must be some persons on the North Shore — 
who prefer the crude oil method of our wild birds and 
animals in the extinction of unprofitable insects and the 
like, than a system against which nature rebels, for it 
destroys and yet does not permanently remove the evil 
without a continued use of the drastic measure. We 
“lead” our wild birds; they leave us and cease to do their 
work. We produce our $30,000 and cry for the minis- 
trations of crude oil to repair our ignorance and heal our 
woes. Science is ever on the alert and it may be the day 
is not far distant when we shall be warned to handle less 
freely crude oil, the dust of which sets free germs of 
disease that medical research now strives to vanquish. 
However, there certainly is no reason why persons de- 
voted to the crude oil cure should not use it on their 
domains to any extent desired, but it does not seem quite 
courteous to coerce others to adopt a measure that does 
not appeal to them as vital or necessary, or that they feel 
they can not respond to at the present time. 
— ‘A Nort SHore Mosoutro.” 
The Mosquito Campaign Misunderstood 
Editor North Shore Breeze: 
In your last week’s issue, under the headline, “An- 
other Side of the Mosquito Crusade,” you had a com- 
munication signed, “A Dweller on the North Shore.” 
It must have been written by someone who has not 
been a consistent reader of the BrREEzE, or he would have 
known that the plan to exterminate mosquitos does not 
contemplate the use of oil; and that the methods pro- 
posed were submitted to and received the approval of 
tne Massachusetts Audubon Society for the protection 
of birds. : 
Last summer oil was used on some of the marshes, 
and in a limited area in the swamps, as a temporary meas- 
ure of relief, because the funds necessary to do the 
more permanent work of getting rid of the breeding 
places by ditching the marshes and draining the stagnant 
pools could not be raised. 
The present plan does not even mean draining all 
larger pools, or brooks where mosquitos do not breed, 
because of flowing water, or where fish can live and eat 
the mosquito larvae or wiggler. 
It does not mean draining or filling the small stagnant 
pools on the rocks or in the woods, where mosquitos breed. 
It provides for scientificially cutting ditches in the 
salt marshes and keeping them open to permit the tide- 
waters to flow in and out, and let the killifish have free 
access to mosquito eggs and larvae. By this method 
mosquito breeding will be stopped, and the marshes them- 
selves improved and beautified. 
Your correspondent need have no fear that the plans 
afoot for the extermination of mosquitos will destroy 
bird life or injure the forests. 
He complains of the spraying of the trees with lead 
poison, not realizing that but for the spraying the cater- 
pillars would have destroyed trees and vegetation, and 
that the spraying has not killed the birds. 
However, as this letter will assure him that oiling 
is not the plan, and that all drinking places for birds 
will not be done away with, the North Shore Association 
for the Extermination of Mosquitos invites his coopera- 
tion and assistance. | 
The public spirit your correspondent shows in his 
desire to preserve the birds and fragrant forests, leads 
us to hope that a consideration of our plans will impel 
him to join our association and become a subscriber to 
the fund that is being raised to free the North Shore 
from the pests which prevent the enjoyment of outdoor 
life and are a menace to health. 3 = 
You may assure your correspondent that the meas- 
ures adopted for the extermination of mosquitos are, with 
the exception of oiling, similar to those successfully tried 
out in Panama, Cuba, on Staten Island, in parts of New 
Jersey, and on Long Island and in Connecticut. Methods 
which have met with the approval of the U. S. Agri- 
cultural Department, and which have been made com- 
pulsory by the Boards of Health in many districts. 
If there is any information which your correspondent, 
or any of your readers, may wish concerning our mos- 
quito crusade we invite correspondence either direct with 
us or through your columns. 
We will be glad to place at his disposal the scien- 
tific reports sent us by the U. S. Government, or by the 
Mosquito Commissions established by law in New Jersey 
and elsewhere. " 
Yours truly, 
WALTER D. DENEGRE, President 
North Shore Association 
for the Extermination of Mosquitos 
