There Is Abundant Evidence That The Larger Portion Of The State
Was At The Time Of Settlement By The White Man Heavily Wooded.
Numerous Ponds Provided Mill Sites For Manufacturing Logs Into
Wood Products For The Use Of The Colonists.
Most of these mills
are in varying stages of decay, but the ponds filled with
stagnant water remain.
There are also numerous lakes and marshes
which are due to the fact that New Jersey has no drainage laws.
Ponds, lakes and marshes all propagate that well-known pest the
"Jersey skeeter." There can be no question of the truthfulness
of all that has been said of him in song and story. This was
fully attested by an erstwhile happy quintet of travelers. There
was apparently nothing in the wide world to mar that happiness
until the ominous growl of distant thunder gave warning of a
rapidly oncoming storm. With its nearer approach it was decided
to seek shelter, so upon seeing a short distance ahead the open
doors of a barn, its protecting walls were soon gained,
permission to enter having been readily given by the owner. It
was thought afterward that there was detected in the man's face
a dry sense of humor, provoked, no doubt, by the experience of
many a luckless traveler who had gone that way before. No sooner
had the shelter of the building been obtained and these same
grateful travelers ensconced themselves in comfortable positions
on the cushions of the car when from the right and the left, the
front and the rear and from the ground beneath and the air above
they were beset by whole companies, battalions, divisions,
armies, yea, tribes and nations of thick-set, sharp-billed
little devils who had come to torment them before their time and
whose every impact brought blood. There was needed no council of
war to determine the course to pursue, so a hasty retreat was
ordered - an ignominious flight, feeling that it were better to
face the perils of the storm without than go down to certain
defeat before this relentless enemy within. These blood-thirsty
villains began to probe eyelids, ears; in fact there was no part
of one's anatomy where they did not alight; and unlike other
members of their tribe that dwell farther north, who advance,
buzz, sting and retreat these "Jersey Skeeters" knew no retreat.
Hurriedly gaining the highway and cautiously proceeding there
was seen broad grins on the faces of a detachment of soldiers in
motor trucks drawn up beside the road. These boys seemed to
thoroughly enjoy witnessing this inglorious retreat, from what
they at first thought, a protecting smoke screen which they had
provided in the rear of their trucks. This smoke screen proved
to be only camouflage, for behind it were seen a number of the
boys with bleared countenances whose limbs were twitching as
though they had the St. Vitus dance.
It takes more than a little smouldering fire to route this pest
of the marshlands and it is doubtful whether all the smoke from
the forest fire, whose devastation had just been witnessed,
could have sufficed to drive these fine sopranoed prima donnas
of the marsh away.
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