How TO HAVE A CLEAN LAWN 125 



WEEDS IN LAWNS. 



The writer's experience is that many of the weeds which appear in new 

 lawns can be subdued by keeping the lawns well cut. Other weeds must be 

 hand pulled. We usually begin with a lawn mower as soon as the grass is 

 about two or three inches high, and follow by hand pulling of the strongest 

 growing weeds. A little later it is well to make a systematic weeding. 

 After that continue with the mower, only pulling weeds occasionally as 

 they become obtrusive. 



Dandelions. A pest which one is very apt to get with grass seed, 

 or to have blown into his place, is the dandelion, and it is very hard to 

 extirpate. Dr. R. R. Snowden of Los Angeles says he has done it in this 

 way: "A narrow kitchen knife was sharpened to a square at the end, 

 chisel-like. A little jab below the crown and an upward jerk with this 

 instrument closed the career of one plant ; and a half hour each morning 

 for a short time cleared the lawn completely. The larger plants have 

 enough food stored in the root to persist in their renewal, so I pushed a 

 piece of three-quarter inch gas pipe down over each, bringing up the root 

 and leaving a small hole that the grass quickly covered." Dr. Snowden 

 succeeds because he gets so much of the root out. It is idle to pull off the 

 top and cutting avails little unless one gets below the dormant buds which 

 the root-crown has in abundance. 



It is possible that broad-leaved weeds like dandelions can be controlled 

 by spraying with copperas water. The Colorado Agricultural College has 

 conducted a series of experiments with killing dandelions in lawns, using 

 four solutions, one of the strength of 20 per cent, one of 10, another of 5, 

 another of 2^2. The two stronger sprays killed all the leaves of the dan- 

 delion, also somewhat blackened the grass. It afterwards showed a darker 

 and richer green than the untreated areas. The conclusions reached by 

 those conducting the experiments are given as follows : It is evident that 

 a 15 per cent solution should be practically as effective as the 20 per cent 

 for this purpose, and that three applications, the first as soon as the plants 

 are in full leaf in the spring; the second in about three weeks, and the 

 last in midsummer, should prove effective in controlling this pest. Al- 

 though the grass was very thin on the areas treated it soon began to 

 thicken, and by October 1 formed a fairly close sod. Nearly all the white 

 clover was killed by the two strongest solutions. 



JBrowri Clover. Another persistent lawn pest is the so-called 

 "brown clover," making a yellow blossom and snapping its seeds widely. It 

 is an oxalis. The only way we know of to eradicate it is to carefully root 

 out every particle of it. If there is very much of it this, of course, is an 

 appalling undertaking, and it might be better to replant the lawn, digging 

 very deeply and being careful to throw every particle of the old sod to the 

 very bottom. We have, however, seen lawns cleaned by faithful hand work 



