THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 139 



practically it must be very nearly indeed a dead level. Let it be 

 made oa a solid substratum of clay, and enclosed with a low ramp 

 of one to two feet of slope. The rest of the work is for the 

 engineers and plumbers to manage^ and in any case it is extremely 

 simple. A service of water will be brought in by pipes at one end, 

 and at the other end will be fitted pipes to take the water away when 

 done with. All the summer long this is a croquet ground or bowling 

 green, a place for lawn billiards, and many more good games. Very 

 early in the winter it becomes a skating rink, when the weathercock 

 veers to some point of north you turn on the water and flood the 

 ground, and next morning there is good skating ice for your money. 

 Tou rejoice in your possession, and you score its face with your 

 elegant evolutions, and when dusk stops your sport, you flood the 

 ground again, and next morning you have a new surface, smooth as 

 glass, and so safe that it will be quite a delight to fall on it. Now 

 having found the thing perfect, send for the young people, and give 

 them carte blanche to come whenever they' see hoar frost on the 

 grass in the morning, for a few degrees of frost will make ice of your 

 two or three inches of water, and you can put a new face on it daily 

 as long as the weather favours the undertaking. It is a rare event 

 to have more than a week of good skating on the rivers and ponds, 

 but on this garden rink you will have skating, if you choose to profit 

 by your advantage, the greater part of the winter, and certainly at 

 those times of clear brisk frost when every one blessed with health 

 longs to be out of doors, in the enjoyment of merry activity. 



You will have remarked above the advice that the ground must 

 have a clay substratum. Where clay is the natural subsoil, there is 

 simply nothing to be done but to lay down the turf upon it, with a 

 suitable supply of fine stufi" to finish tlie work neatly. But if the 

 subsoil is such that there is a probability that water would not stay, 

 it would be necessary to lay down clay, and puddle it as in making 

 a pond. It follows that the cost would, in many instances, be too 

 great to come into the category of reasonable expenditure ; hence 

 occupants of chalky and sandy soils may find discretion the better 

 part of valour, and most properly refrain from indulging in the 

 luxury of a skating rink. jS"o one could establish such a thing more 

 cheaply than myself, for I am located on clay of any depth, and 

 we could flood the rink without any help from engineers or plumbers, 

 having peculiar " water privileges " that need not be described. As 

 a matter of course, no general advice will suit every particular 

 circumstance and locality. It may, however, be proper to remark 

 that a pavement of cement would answer perfectly, but would be 

 less agreeable than turf in the summer. 



The keeping of croquet lawns is a matter of the utmost import- 

 ance. It is quite a common occurrence to find them worn out before 

 the summer is half gone, and this invariably happens if there is 

 frequent play on an old lawn in the immediate vicinity of large trees. 

 Now the proper way to renew the turf of these lawns is very rarely 

 resorted to, a7id, in many cases, the proper way may be objection- 

 able, because it renders the lawn unsiglitly for a time. However, it 

 is just such a matter as this tliat especially concerns us, and the 



May. 



