LAWNS 63 



chopped into small sections. The first method is preferable. These 

 sections of roots or small clumps are planted from three to six inches 

 deep; more shallow if the soil is moist. Shallow planting should be 

 adopted only where ideal conditions exist for keeping the soil moist. 

 It requires approximately three cubic yards of these roots to plant 

 one acre of lawn. If the roots are contained in two and one half 

 bushel sacks it will require from one hundred and forty to one hun- 

 dred and fifty of these sacks filled with Bermuda grass roots to plant 

 one acre of lawn, or approximately one sack for each two hundred and 

 twenty-five square feet. These roots of Bermuda grass or St. Augustine 

 grass should not be permitted to dry out, either while piled waiting for 

 shipment or while in transit to the place where the lawn is being made. 

 Injury from the drying out of the roots of these plants between the 

 time they are dug and the time they are planted is not nearly so 

 serious as the injury caused by heating or sweating while the plants 

 are still in the sacks. If these plants are allowed to heat or sweat they 

 immediately turn yellow, begin to rot and die. Any plants that have 

 been subjected to this heating or sweating process should not be 

 planted. If the lawn which is to be developed is large, then a simple 

 method of planting these grasses is to spread them broadcast over the 

 ground and to disc the roots in with a harrow, or to plow a shallow 

 furrow and plant the roots in the furrows. The discing process has 

 sometimes proved a failure. It requires approximately twice as much 

 grass and roots as the planting in furrows, in order to get the same stand 

 of grass. It is a process, however, which can well be adopted where an 

 immediate even stand of grass is not essential. This is true because in 

 the process of planting in furrows the grass can be more evenly dis- 

 tributed at a shallow depth while in the discing process most of the 

 grass finds itself at a considerable depth, thus requiring more time for 

 the grass to reach the surface. 



The Italian rye lasts only during one season. The Bermuda grass 

 and St. Augustine grass will make a lawn nearly as permanent as 

 any northern lawn, provided the proper maintenance and attention 

 in rolling and watering is given. Lawns of these types should be 

 watered at least once in ten days or two weeks, at which intervals 

 they should be thoroughly soaked. In order to maintain a Bermuda 

 grass lawn in its best condition the lawn should go through the process 

 of renovation every second or third year. This process consists of a 

 discing, done for the purpose of cutting the roots and producing new 



