New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. te 
with upland soil. This method can only be effective when the 
added layer of soil is sufficiently 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, N. Y. He had a piece of land 
which had been cropped with onions continuously for thirty 
years. It became so smutty that only one-twentieth to one-tenth 
of a crop could be obtained even when as much as fourteen 
pounds of seed were used per acre.2. 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 frea 
from smut. 
*In the Orange County onion district the land is mostly livided into sinali 
fields of from one to five acres bounded by open drainage ditches, eighteer 
finches to two feet in depth, 
