MANAGEMENT OF LAWNS. 



In all well-kept garden establishments, lawns not only form the principal features, 

 but they occupy the larger portion of time and manual labor. Whatever is calcu- 

 lated to lessen this, or to make it more effective, is of the highest importance to 

 the gardener. We remember well reading a report of the transactions for the 

 year of the Sheffield Botanical Gardens, which had been, in some measure, starved 

 for want of public support, and rendered very unsatisfactory to the curator, through 

 the extremely limited means at his command. The shareholders were congratu- 

 lated on the improved appearance of the gai'dens, in consequence of adopting a 

 mowing machine instead of ordinary mowing. The improvement was manifest in 

 the state of the gardens, and the saving was palpable in the accounts themselves. 

 The only objection to the use of the machine, so far as we have heard, was that, 

 if there were any hollows in the lawn, the work was not done complete ; but this 

 only applies to such hollows as would also baffle all attempts to do justice with 

 a scythe, because the machine will work up and down hill, and on the side of a 

 hill, as well as on level ground. It will follow in and out of all hollows large 

 enough to take a roller, and everybody must know that inequalities that cannot 

 be rolled, cannot be kept in order at all. Ruts like those made with cart- 

 wheels, and holes that the roller would pass over, can never be mowed clean 

 with the smallest scythe. The very first step to be taken towards getting a 

 lawn in good order, is to destroy all such inequalities, either by raising the turf, 

 or filling them in. Undulations are not only allowable, but, if well managed, are 

 beautiful ; but holes and ruts are altogether inadmissible. If lawns have been 

 long neglected, they will have become rough and lumpy. The coarse grasses will 

 have grown strong, and spread at the expense of the better and finer sorts. The 

 whole must be cut as close as possible. This will at once show the inequalities, 

 and if it be very bad, the first trouble and expense will be the least. Cut all the 

 turf well, and roll it up to be stacked outside the work ; have the whole space dug, 

 levelled, and rolled, lay the turf down again, and beat it all over properly. It 

 may then be rolled with a heavy roller after every good wetting with rain, and 

 as soon as it begins to grow use the machine, which can be run over the whole 

 space even before it is long enough to be cut with a scythe. If any of the 

 noxious weeds should be inclined to grow again, take a spade and dig them fairly 

 out. This will be easily done, because the root has been cut off at the thickness 

 of the turf, and was turned when the ground was dug. True, it will leave holes 

 in the turf, but it must be done, if it takes days to do it. The first expense in 

 this matter is the least. Presuming, then, that all those weeds which spoil a lawn, 

 if allowed to grow, are scooped out (we mean such as docks, dandelions, sow- 

 thistles, sorrel, &c.), let there be a dressing of road sand, with which all the holes 

 will be filled up level by common bush harrowing, and every mark left in the joinings 

 of the turf obliterated. As soon as there is the least growth in the grass, let it be 

 heavily rolled one day and mowed the next, and, by these means, a coarse, uneven 

 meadow, to say nothing of a neglected lawn, will be made all that can be wished of 

 a dressed ground. But machine mowing, while it takes much less time, requires 

 to be done regularly, and after the new lawn, as it were, is once properly levelled 

 and established, no more rolling is wanted than that which the instrument itself 

 gives at the time of mowing, for it is in itself both scythe and roller. Incessant 

 cutting would make almost any coarse lawn smooth in time, but by the means we 

 have pointed out, it will be good the first season. Although we have advocated 

 the machine, which may be had, to cut and roll sixteen inches wide, for about five 



