204 HARD COURTS FOR LAWN TEXXIS. 



game and more men of promise be discovered to graduate eventually at Wimbledon and represent us 

 against Colonial cousins. 



As to the joy of the game played on a hard court on a winter s day there can be no doubt. To 

 don flannels and take a racket from the press seems a startling thing to do in November, and you slink off 

 in overcoat to the astonishment of passers-by, who clearly doubt your sanity. Until you warm to the 

 game the north-east wind treats the tennis shirt as a covering of little moment, but at &quot; fifteen all,&quot; this 

 hardly troubles, and at the end of the set you will have to be sternly advised to get into your overcoat 

 again because you are so hot. There is no pat-ball on a hard court, and the service comes off the billiard- 

 table-like surface as true and hard as a bullet. Hard courts are not as expensive to make in the first case 

 as grass courts, and are much easier to maintain. As to the making, care should be taken to choose as 

 level a part of the garden as possible so as to save expense in digging. An area one hundred and twenty 

 feet by sixty feet is needed. The first step is to remove the top soil one spit deep all over. This should 

 be wheeled awav for use in making up borders, or it can be sold, and Ihe proceeds go to reduce the cost. 

 It is essential that the top spit be taken off, as the whole idea of the hard court is that rain shall readily 

 drain through it, and so leave a dry surface fit to be played upon ; if underneath the ballast one leaves 

 this layer, which is full of vegetable matter, the final result will not be satisfactory. 



The nature oi the subsoil is the next determining factor. In any case it must be levelled, and a 

 dead-level court is to be prepared. It spoils the game if, as a result of guessing &quot; rough &quot; or &quot; smooth 

 correctly, a move is made to one side of the nest which has an advantage of level over the other. Also, 

 in a hard court, it is absurd to expect that any fall in the actual surface will help to drain- rain goes through 

 at once, so draining must be dealt with underneath. If the subsoil is a stiff clay, the upper surface ol i; 

 must be graded to fall to channels. In these are placed ordinary agricultural draining-pipes. which need 

 to be taken to a ditch or soak-away sump hole. Where the subsoil is sand or gravel the only necessary 

 precaution is to take off the vegetable top spit, which would serve to keep the moisture from draining 

 through into the subsoil. This stage successfully passed, there remains the provision of the materials 

 for the formation of the court, and those indigenous to the neighbourhood will obviously be the cheapest. 

 The essential quality is that they should not disintegrate by reason ol climatic influences, and that they 

 should have the further property of packing down hard and not easily becoming loose or triable. 



Perhaps a description ot the materials used in the tvurt which is illustrated may serve as guidance 

 in judging how far local materials may be suitable. The bottom layer was of gas clinker this 

 was put on six inches thick, and rolled clown with a heavy horse-roller to about lour inches, all large pieces 

 being broken with a hammer. The second layer was of burnt clay ballast, three inches thick, rolled down 

 to two inches with a lighter roller pulled by three men, and water was prodigally used to consolidate the 

 mass. The court as finished is very successful, but there is always the danger that clay ballast may not 

 be thoroughly burnt, and so show a tendency to revert to clay. Another material very suitable tor the 

 second coat is the refuse lelt after a clamp of bricks have been burnt and cleared away, and there is less 

 tear of reversion here, as the heat generated in a brick clamp is fiercer and more constant than in burning 

 ballast. 



The final coat was two inches of sifted burnt gravel, put on and rolled with a lighter roller (again 

 with much water) to a thickness of one inch. A local brickfield burns gravel by means of rubbish, and this, 

 again, is safer than the burnt clay ballast. It was at first feared that little splinters of flint, caused by the 

 burning, might cut the balls, but the result has proved otherwise, and this final coat is very satisfactory 

 and hard-wearing. To mark the line of demarcation between ballast and grass, pieces of wood four inches 

 by two inches were set up edgeways, the top being level with the court and nailed to uprights let into 

 it. All the wood was tarred, and on this line the ten-foot galvanised wire netting was set up with iron 

 standards, as balls must not be allowed near damp grass. 



The only remaining details are the fixing in concrete of sockets to take the net posts, as the 

 ordinary attachment would, of course, pull up out of the ballast ; and the addition of a little plaster of 

 Paris to the whiting when the court is marked out, which makes the lines last longer. A genera! point to 

 be remembered is that in the making and the after maintenance of the court rolling cannot be overdone. 



Enough has been written to show that it is a comparatively simple matter to form a hard court, 

 and that its success depends mainly on the suitability of the materials used. As to the labour, any 

 agricultural labourer or gardener can easily do the work. C. H. B. OTENNHLL. 



