The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-12-14

, '"' ~ uII HoDc y cdIS
ago in Storkvillc Center, VI. There
was swa..lp about two OF three
miles north of the town that bred
mosquitoes at least as large as any
that ever wc-e, and in summer
when the wind was right they would
come down on uss in swar,us. and
they certainly did give us good
deal Of trouble. When tho wind
was blowing tho other way and
blowing strong, they never used to
bother us at all. and this suggested
the 'dea of putting up plant to
keep wind blowing in that direc.
tiOn all the time, and sucn plant
was finally get up There was some
opposition to it at first "A good deal.
In fact-buf when it was finally in
operation it worked SO perfectly
that the sentiment in favor OF it be-
came practically unanimous.
Between the town and the swamp
ard pretty well up toward the
swamp we set up long line of poles
right across the country, extending
on either side out beyond the line Of
the town. and on these poles there
was carried, at "a height Of about IL
feet from the ground. II perforated
pipe with the pcrforations toward
the swamp, and that's all there wns
to it but the power, and one steam
engine at the center Of the line sup
piled that, furnishing compressed
air which was forced into tho dis
tributing pipe at various places
along tho line and out through all
the perforations i'll front 1t was
like IL long sprinkler. except that it
didn't sprinkle. 1t supplied nir, and
all these jets Of air, expanding, unit
ed ut IL little distance in front Of tho
perforations, and, still expanding,
but yet returning ample strength,
they made Il continuous and suili-
ciently vigorous blast reaching from
tho ground to n height higher than
mosquitoes fly Il wall of wind
against which mosquitoes could
mako no headway. Ono man could
operate this whole plant easily.
''Of course, we made some mis-
takes at first, including one that
might have been expected in the in
tercst of economy. In those days
we never used to light our street
lamps on moonlight nights-thnt is,
on nights that were moonlight nc
cording to the calendar. They might
be the cloudiest, blackest nights
that ever were, but if it was moon
light officially we didn't light up.
We made similar mistake at first
in operating the wind plant. When
the wind was i'll the right quarter
to blow the mosquitoes away and
there was plenty of it, we used to
save fuel and let the wind plant lio
idle, but after the wind had changed
once or twice in the night we gave
up the economy idea and ran the
plant regularly every night without
regard to the weather from the be-
ginning to the end of the season. I
think our season there was a little
shorter than it is about here. We
used to start the wind plant June l
and shut down Sept. 80.
'Rnt the greatest difficulty we
ever had over the plant was when n
town just to the south of us sued us
on account of it, claiming large
damages from the operation of it,
and getting out n temporary injunc-
ton restraining us from the use Of
it. During that period of suspension
we suffered from the mosquitoes,
as we had done before the inaugural
ton Of the plant, these sufferings
being magnified in our minds no
doubt by the freedom from them
which we had for some time en-
joyed.
This town that sued us claimed
that they had got all our mosqui-
toes. They said that of the original
current Of mosquitoes from the
swamp the part that under ordinary
circumstances would have come to
Storkvillo Center and staid there
had not been permanently held back
NY OoA "sAN sSAdASp Out OhAy NCACCS-
ed around it's wings. and that the
mosquitoes thus DETECTED had re-
united below Storkville Center and
gone on to them, and that 80 they
got their own and ours, too, and
they asked for a permanent injunc-
tion and damages.
"Storkville Center won, but for
all that the wind plant finally fell
into disuse. 1 don't know just how
this came about. / suppose they
didn't keep it in order, and it did-s't
work so perfectly, and then there
were new people coming up all the
time and more or less opposition
from them, and the others didn't
take SO much interest in it as they
did at first, and finally they stopped
using it altogether. and tho whole
plant went to decay. was out that
way toward the swamp the last time
was in Slorkville Center, and there