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inches deep, the young. maggots fail to reach the bottom. 

 of the onion, where they expect to make an entrance ; 

 and so few attempt it at the side of the plant, that the 

 crop is but little affected. I have tried this method for 

 several years with success; it is important, also, to sow 

 early, and to have the surface of the land highly manur- 

 ed, to give the crop an early and rapid growth in order 

 that the plants may the sooner be too large to be affected 

 by the few maggots that do succeed in making an en- 

 trance at the side. 



The onion blight and smut, also the potato rot, are at 

 times very destructive to those crops, turning the most 

 promising fields, within a few days, to scenes of desola- 

 tion. All, in my opinion, are caused by parasite plants 

 of different varieties, grov;ing upon and consuming Ihe 

 vitality of the onion and potato plants, and in the latter 

 so poisoning the plant as to cause the tuber rapidh^ to 

 decay. The onion smut, which has more of the character 

 of a fungus plant, so impregnates the land with its spore, 

 as to render it unsafe to plant onions for several 3^ear^ 

 on land thus affected. The parasite that produces the- 

 onion white blight does not reproduce itself by seeding 

 the land, but comes upon the crop at the period of its most 

 vigorous grovv'th, in a dry time, showing its effects per- 

 haps in ;i small spot at first, but in case the dry atmos- 

 phere continues, rapidly spreading over the whole field. 

 Two or three days give sufficient time to stop entirely 

 all future growth of the crop, unless a change in the 

 weather occurs unfavorable to the growth of this para- 

 site. There is another kind of parasite ecjually destruc- 

 tive, that causes the black blight on the onion crop, sim- 

 ilar to tliat which affects the potato, and requiring the 

 same state of the weather to produce it that is necessary. 



