ONION SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION. 59 



Connecticut Valley Onion District. 

 Topographic Features^ of the Connecticut Valley. 



The Connecticut Valley is an elongated basin extending through western 

 Connecticut and Massachusetts. It has a slight southwestern trend, 

 and the Connecticut River flows lengthwise through its central part. 

 At the northern border of Massachusetts its width is about 2 miles. 

 The eastern border extends southward in a generally straight line. The 

 western border, however, is less regular, receding l:(y three successive 

 steps until the valley reaches the width of approximately 25 miles at 

 Hartford. 



Throughout the area the walls are comparatively steep and high, and 

 notched by narrow, picturesque gorges through which the Miller and 

 Chicopee rivers enter from the east, and the Falls, Green, Deerfield, Mill, 

 Westfield and Northampton rivers on the west. The surface of the valley 

 is frequently broken by long and abrupt ridges and peaks. The Mount 

 Holyoke range extends from New Britain nearly to Northampton, and 

 then 'turns east across the valley which it almost completely divides. 

 The Deerfield range extends from Mount Sugarloaf near Sunderland to 

 the village of Gill beyond Greenfield. 



In this survey we are concerned only with that portion of the valley 

 lying between the towns of Wendell, Gill and Greenfield on the north 

 and Chicopee and Holyoke on the south, a strip approximately 25 miles 

 in length, with an average width of about 5 miles. This includes the 

 towns of Deerfield, Montague, Sunderland, Whately, Amherst, Hadley, 

 Hatfield and Northampton, the principal onion-producing towns in 

 western Massachusetts. 



Onion Soils. 



The United States Bureau of Soils recognizes at least fourteen soil 

 types found in larger or smaller areas in the Connecticut Valley. These 

 range in character from clays and heavy loams through fine and coarse 

 grades of sand to gravel. The soil' known as the Connecticut meadows, 

 a dark silt loam overlying a silt and very fine sand subsoil which grows 

 heavier downward, is the chief onion soil of the vaUey. Besides silt both 

 the soil and subsoil contain a considerable quantity of very fine sand and 

 a little clay. 



Large areas of this type of soil are found along the Connecticut River 

 at Northampton and extend northwest into Sunderland. Comparatively 

 large areas are also found in the Deerfield Valley and near Northfield. 

 Other important soil types found in the valley, which lend themselves to 

 onion growing when in proper mechanical condition and well fertilized, 

 are the Hartford very fine sandy loam and the Hartford sandy loam. 



The total number of acres of cultivated, uncultivated and unimprovable 

 land in the Connecticut Valley onion area in the census year 1905 is 

 shown by the following table. Approximately 56 per cent, of all the 



