258 MANAGEMENT OF LAWNS. [chap. IX. 



seeds, they have done all that is requisite ; and 

 my object is simply to impress upon the minds 

 of my readers, that this is not enough : for, as 

 there are different kinds of turf and grasses, it 

 is as necessary to choose which to take, as to 

 select flowers for the flower-garden. I have 

 only to add that the reddish-brown hue some- 

 times observed on the brows of hills in pleasure- 

 grounds is produced by Holcus lanatus, a kind 

 of couch grass that wastes all its strength on its 

 fleshy roots, and produces only a thin and wiry 

 herbage. This species, the different kinds of 

 Agrostis, or bent grass, the brome grasses, par- 

 ticularly Bromus arvensis, and the cock's-foot 

 grass, Dactylis glomerata, should never be sown 

 in lawns. 



Grass seeds should be sown either in spring 

 or autumn; and May and August or September 

 are considered the best months. In very old 

 lawns, moss is apt to predominate, and when it 

 is wished to destroy this, the surface of the lawn 

 is dressed, as it is called, in May with lime. 

 Dressing with lime will also destroy the worms, 

 which are often very troublesome in lawns (par- 

 ticularly where the ground has been manured 

 with durig), in throwing up casts, which make 

 the ground uneven and very difficult to mow. 



The Walks in Pleasure-Grounds should be 

 hard and dry ; and they should also be suffici- 

 ently wide to admit of three persons to walk 

 abreast occasionally; as nothing can be more 

 disagreeable than the situation of the third per- 

 son, whom the narrowness of the walk obliges 

 to walk before or behind the others ; and who is 

 obliged either to remain silent, or to carry on a 



