New York’ AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 93 
lings germinated in smut-free soil do not contract the disease 
when transplanted into smut-infested soil. 
The following little experiment made by us in 1900 confirms 
the results obtained by Thaxter and Sturgis. In a garden at 
Jamaica, Long Island, where onion smut had never been known 
to occur, we planted onion seed in eight rows each ten feet in 
length. A quantity of sniut-infested soil was brought from 
Florida, N. Y., and applied to four of the rows, as follows: 
Row 1. Smutty soil sown in the open row before sowing the 
seed; 
— Row 2. Check; 
Row 3. Smutty soil sown in the open row after the seed was 
sown, but before it was covered; 
Row 4. Check; 
Row 5. Smutty soil sown over the rows immediately after the 
seed was covered; 
Row 6. Check; 
Row 7. Smutty soil sown over the rows 11 days after the seed 
was sown—yjust after the seedlings began to appear above the 
surface of the soil; 
Row 8. Check. 
‘The seed was sown May 2. There was rain on the morning of 
May 3 and again. on the evening of May 8. : 
In Rows 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8 none of the plants became infested 
with smut; in Rows 1 and 3 there were very many smutty plants; 
and in Row 5 1 few smutty plants, 
The results of this experiment indicate that by the time the 
onion seedlings reach the surface of the soil they are immune to 
the attacks of smut. The few smutty plants in Row 5 are to be 
accounted for by supposing that the rain of May 8 carried some 
of the smut spores down to the germinating seeds. In the case 
of Row 7 it is very improbable that the failure of the plants to 
become infested was due to the lack of suitable conditions ‘for 
spore germination; because light rains fell May 18, 15, 16, 17 and 
18; on ray 19 there was a heavy rain. 
