Kew York Agricultural Experiment Station. 73 



with npland soil. Tliis method can only be effective when the 

 added layer of soil is suflficiently thick to prevent the smutty soil 

 beneath from being brought to the surface in plowing. The ex- 

 pense of this treatment probably precludes its use. 



A unique method of burying the surface soil has been carried 

 out by Mr. .J. J. Kelly of Florida, X. Y. He had a piece of land 

 which had been cropped with onions continuously for thirty 

 years. It became so smuttv that onlv one-twentieth to one-tenth 

 of a crop could be obtained even when as much as fourteen 

 I)ounds of seed were used per acre.^ He then conceived the idea 

 of causing eight inches of the surface soil to change places with 

 eight inches of the soil underneath. This was accomplished by 

 first plowing a furrow eight inches deep, depositing it in a trench 

 previously made, and then running the plow a second time in the 

 same furrow, deepening it eight inches more and throwing the 

 dirt over the first furrow. Care was taken to prevent as far as 

 possible the mixing of the surface soil with the undersoil. The 

 surface furrow was carefully leveled off with a shovel before the 

 bottom furrow was thrown over it. 



The chief difficulty encountered was the getting started. It 

 was necessary to dig a trench eight inches deep and four furrows 

 wide for a starting point; but Mr. Kelly thinks that another time 

 he would use the drainage ditch^ as a starting point, thereby 

 avoiding the labor of digging a trench and at the same time dis- 

 posing of weeds and grass which become troublesome along the 

 ditch banks. When done plowing, the dead-furrows would mark 

 the location of the new drainage ditches which would be already 

 partly dug. 



Another difficulty was found in the fact that it was impossible 

 for a horse to walk in the deep furrow without miring. This 

 was overcome by hitching to the middle of the plow beam in 



-About six pounds of seed per acre is considered sufficient on land free 

 from smut. 



-In the Orange County onion district the land is mostly livided into small 

 fields of from one to five acres bounded by open drainage ditches, eighteer 

 inches to two feet in depth. 



