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FOEMmG AND MANAGING GEASS LAWNS. 



SHOSE who have good turf should take good care of it, for 

 this, like other useful things, may be ruined by bad 

 management. Eoll it and mow it frequently, grub out 

 the daisies, and sprinkle nitrate of soda thinly on the 

 parts that have become mossy, or dress the whole sur- 

 face with superphosphate of lime if the lawn is an old one, and the 

 grass is getting poor. But turf is not everywhere good ; in fact, we 

 rarely meet with turf that thoroughly pleases us, and we are rather 

 fastidious on the subject. There may be grass, and plenty of it ; 

 but we abhor the coarse meadow turf to be seen in many of the villa 

 gardens about London, and if we had to take the gardens under our 

 charge, we should strip off such turf and sow it down afresh for the 

 sake of having a fine, close, smooth, velvet-like sward, which strong- 

 growing grasses cannot produce under any circumstances. This is 

 the first point to be noted. Many who think they have good lawns, 

 have, in reality, very bad ones, and the reason of the badness is 

 that when the grass was laid down, the turf was taken from a 

 meadow where the coarse-growing feed-grasses constantly manured 

 on strong loamy soils acquired a robustness that rendered them fit 

 only for one purpose in a garden, and that to be laid up in ridges to 

 rot, to furnish the basis of composts for pelargoniums, carnations, and 

 other flowers that like a soil consisting chiefly of turfy loam. I 

 would impress upon those about to form new lawns or mend old ones, 

 that turf I'rotn a meadow is utterly unfit for a garden lawn, and that 

 lawns so formed lack the felt-like character which should always be 

 aimed at iu the formation of a plot of turf. 



Where is turf to be had ? This is a puzzling question. The 

 commons are being enclosed, and there is scarcely fifty square miles 

 of real good turf left within carting distance of the whole of the 

 towns of England, and about London there is none to be found with- 

 in a day's journey. If close turf from a common can be had, there is 

 nothing better for a garden lawn. It should be taken from spots 

 where the soil is poor, where it has been bitten for centuries, where 

 the grasses are of fine growth, and a close bottom of clover makes the 

 ground elastic to the tread. To lay down such turf is a mere mecha- 

 nical operation, and it is only necessary to have the ground deeply 

 trenched, all large stones removed, then levelled, and raked smooth, 

 and down may go the turf. If well beaten it will afterwards take 

 care of itself ; but if the weather is very dry, after laying it down, it 

 should be drenched with water once or twice, and for this work there 

 is a water-barrow by which the operation may be accomplished with 

 very little labour. Mere sprinkling the surface of grass is of little 

 use ; if water is needed, give plenty, and leave it alone till it is again 

 dry enough to require a repetition ; but in this climate it is not often 

 that we need to water grass, though in the vicinity of towns grass 

 often needs water towards the end of the summer, and very seldom 

 gets it. 



If really fine close turf cannot be liad, then there is a resource 



