Black Dirt region - wikipedia Black Dirt region Black dirt field near the village of Florida The Black Dirt Region is located in southern Orange County, New York, United States and northern Sussex County, New Jersey. It is mostly located in the western section of the Town of Warwick, centered on the hamlet of Pine Island. Some sections spill over into adjacent portions of the towns of Chester, Goshen and Wawayanda in New York and parts of Wantage and Vernon, New Jersey. Before the region was drained in the early nineteenth century through drainage culverts and the construction of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, it was a densely - vegetated marsh known as the `` Drowned Lands of the Wallkill '' The Black Dirt Region takes its name from the dark, extremely fertile soil left over from an ancient glacial lake bottom augmented by decades of past flooding of the Wallkill River. The 26,000 acres ( 10,400 ha ) of muck left over is the largest concentration of such soil in the United States outside the Florida Everglades. The Black Dirt Region, viewed looking south from a hill in the Town of Goshen. Contents 1 Geography 2 History 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links Geography The area mostly consists of flat flood plain. The few areas that rise above the valley floor are known as `` islands '', since they often were in times of heavy flooding. New Jersey 's Pochuck Mountain looms just to the south of the region, and the ridge continues into the region as a small upland area called Pochuck Neck ; there are two smaller hills within it known as Mounts Adam and Eve, rising to 900 and 1,060 feet ( 274 and 323 m ) respectively. The area is also very noticeable on satellite imagery by the color differential from its surroundings. History Farmers generally avoided the area in the early years of settlement, because the soil, although rich, was frequently flooded and poorly drained. Instead, the land was used for pasturage, though sudden storms would often drown the stock. Starting in 1804, talks began about the best way to drain the swampland. First, an attempt was made to clear the natural obstacles, but that proved too expensive. Instead, a drainage canal was constructed by General George D. Wickham through his property in 1835. ( The former course is now a creek meandering parallel ). Immigrants from Eastern Europe, particularly Poles and Volga Germans, had worked similar soils, known as `` chernozem '', in their native countries and began farming the former swampland. In the mid-19th century they won a series of conflicts with downstream millers later dubbed `` the Muskrat and Beaver Wars '', giving them the right to prevent a dam from being built on the drainage channel They eventually began growing the pungent, highly prized black - dirt onion on the land, taking advantage of the relative proximity of New York City as a market. By the late 20th century the region was producing an average of 30,000 pounds of onion per acre. Today, due to changing popular tastes in onions and different economic realities, that staple is not as profitable as it was, and farmers in the region have been diversifying their crops to include lettuce, radish, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, and, increasingly, sod. Development of the farmland is considered unlikely since the soil is very poor for building. See also Hudson Valley portal Terra preta Vincent Kosuga References ^ Jump up to : Gordon, John Steele ( December 1990 ). `` Sowing the American Dream ''. American Heritage. 41 ( 8 ). Retrieved 2007 - 08 - 26. Orange County, with a total of twenty - six thousand acres, had more of it in one spot than any place else in the United States except the Florida Everglades. Jump up ^ http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=41.340828&lon=-74.4273769&z=12&l=0&m=b Jump up ^ Snell, James ( 1881 ). History of Sussex and Warren County, New Jersey. Retrieved 2007 - 08 - 26... Further reading Pride and Produce. Cheetah Haysom 2015. Drowned Lands Press, New York, NY. 978 - 0 - 692 - 59127 - 7. External links Drowned Lands Historical society Annual Black Dirt Feast Year 2 Video Annual Black Dirt Feast Year 3 Video Goshen, New York Municipalities Village of Florida Town of Goshen Village of Goshen Education Goshen Central School District Goshen Central High School Goshen Intermediate School Scotchtown Avenue Elementary School Private John S. Burke Catholic High School Historic buildings and sites 1841 Goshen Courthouse Church Park Historic District District School No. 9 Dutchess Quarry Cave Site Everett - Bradner House George T. Wisner House Good Time Park Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame Historic Track Sawyer Farmhouse U.S. Post Office Other Black Dirt Region Orange County Government Center Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Black_Dirt_Region&oldid=793364067 '' Categories : Agriculture in the United States Geography of Orange County, New York Economy of Orange County, New York History of Orange County, New York Goshen, New York Geography of Sussex County, New Jersey Warwick, New York Agriculture in New York ( state ) Agriculture in New Jersey Soil in the United States Chernozemye Talk Contents About Wikipedia Português Edit links This page was last edited on 1 August 2017, at 09 : 05. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. 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Question: where is the best farming soil in the us and where did all the dirt come from
Answer: The Black Dirt Region