202 



A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 



" How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon that bank;"' 



or AitiosTo. in liis Orlando — 



«' The approacliing night, not knowing where to 



pass, 

 She checks her reins, and on the i^elvcl grass, 

 Beneath the umbrageous trees, lier form slio tlirows, 

 To cheat the teilious hours witli brief repose." 



In &hort, tlie ideal of grass is nlawn, which 

 is, to a meadow, what " Bishop's lawn " is to 

 homespun Irish linen. 



With such a lawn, and large and massive 

 trees, one has indeed the most enduring 

 sources of beauty in a country residence. 

 Perpetual neatness, freshness and verdure 

 in the one ; ever expanding beauty, variety 

 and.grandeur in the other — what more does 

 a reasonable nian desire of the beautiful 

 about him in the country ? Must wc add 

 flowers, exotic plants, fruits? Perhaps so, 

 but they are all, in an ornamental light, 

 secondary to trees and grass, where these 

 can be had in perfection. Only one other 

 grand element is needed to make our land- 

 scape garden complete — water. A river, 

 or a lake, in which the skies and the " tuft- 

 ed trees" may see themselves reflected, is 

 ever an indispensable feature to a perfect 

 landscape. 



Hoiv to obtain a fine lawn, is a question 

 which has no doubt already puzzled, many of 

 our readers. They have thought, perhaps, 

 that it would be quite sufHcient to sow with 

 grass seeds, or lay down neatly with sods, 

 any plat of common soil, to mow it occa- 

 sionally, to be repaid by the perpetual soft- 

 ness and verdure of an "English lawn." 



They have found, however, after a pa- 

 tient trial in several seasons, that an Ame- 

 rican summer, so bright and sunny as to 

 give us, in our fruits, almost the ripeness and 

 prodigality of the tropics, does not, like that 

 of Britain, ever moist and humid, naturally 

 favor the condition of fine lawns. 



Beautiful as our lawns usually are in 



July and August, they too often lose that 

 freshness and verdure which is for thcin 

 what the rose-bloom of youth is to a beauiy 

 of seventeen — their most captivating feature. 



There are not wanting admirers of fine 

 lawns, who, witnessing this summer sear- 

 ing, have pronounced it an impossible thing 

 to produce a fine lawn in this country. To 

 such an oj)iiiion we can never subscribe — tor 

 the very sufficient reason that we have seen, 

 over and over again, admirable lawns wher- 

 ever they have been properly treated. Fine 

 lawns are tiierefore possible in all the nor- 

 thern half of the Union. What then are 

 the necessary conditions to be observed — 

 what the preliminary steps to be taken in or 

 der to obtain them ? Let us answer in a few 

 words — deep soil, the proper kinds of grasses, 

 and freque?it moiving. 



First of all, for us, deep soil. In a moist 

 climate, where showers or fogs give all ve- 

 getable nature a weekly succession of baths, 

 one may raise a pretty bit of turf on a bare 

 board, with half an inch of soil. But here 

 it does not require much observation or the- 

 ory to teach us, that if any plant is to main- 

 tain its verdure through a long and bright 

 summer, with alternate periods of wet and 

 drouth, it must have a deep soil in which to 

 extend its roots. We have seen the roots 

 of common clover, in trenched soil, which had 

 descended to the depth of four feet ! A sur- 

 face drouth, or dry weather, had little power 

 over a plant whose little fibres were in the 

 cool moist understratum of that depth. And a 

 lawn which is well established on thorough- 

 ly trenched soil, will remain, even in mid- 

 summer, of a fine dark verdure, when upon 

 the same soil untrenched, every little period 

 of dryness would give a brown and faded 

 look to the turf. 



The most essential point being a deep 

 soil, we need not say that in our estimation. 



May, June, September, and October, yet in any person about to lay down a permanent 



