306 Landscape Gardening 



nessing this summer searing, have pronounced it an im- 

 possible thing to produce a fine lawn in this country. To 

 such an opinion we can never subscribe, for the very suffi- 

 cient reason that we have seen over and over again admir- 

 able lawns wherever they have been properly treated. Fine 

 lawns are therefore possible in all the northern half of the 

 Union. What then are the necessary conditions to be ob- 

 served, what the preliminary steps to be taken in order to 

 obtain them? Let us answer in a few words - - deep soil, the 

 proper kinds of grasses and frequent mowing. 



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

 showers or fogs give all vegetable nature a weekly succes- 

 sion 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 theory to teach us that if any plant is 

 to maintain 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 de- 

 scended to the depth of four feet ! A surface 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 thoroughly trenched soil, 

 will remain, even in midsummer, 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 any person about to lay down a 

 permanent lawn, whether of fifty acres or fifty feet square, 

 must provide himself against failure by this groundwork of 

 success. 



Little plats of ground are easily trenched with the spade. 

 Large lawn surfaces are only to be managed (unless ex- 

 pense is not a consideration), with the subsoil plow. With 

 this grand developer of resources, worked by two yoke of 

 oxen, let the whole area to be laid down be thoroughly 

 moved and broken up two feet deep. The autumn or early 

 winter is the best season for performing this, because the 



