MAKING READY 



with toys, swings, seesaws, and sand-heaps. If 

 a garden Is possible, however, prepare for It In 

 the fall, with a spading, taking dry weather for 

 the digging, and pulling out all the big and 

 troublesome weeds before they go to seed. Be 

 sure to do this work while the ground Is dry: 

 otherwise the soil can not be easily loosened up, 

 and the weeds that you overturn will be less apt 

 to strike their roots back Into the earth than If 

 they and the earth were wet. This rule holds 

 in plowing and harrowing, where they are prac- 

 tical, quite as well as In spading. After the soil 

 has been turned over, It Is to be raked level, lawn 

 grass-seed Is to be sprinkled over it, and It is 

 then to be rolled — you can hire the rolling and 

 need not buy the machine to do It with — after 

 which, the flower-beds are to be laid off in the 

 spaces not assigned to grass; trees and shrubs, 

 if any, are to be planted, and a little later, bulbs 

 are to be set out for spring flowering. 



As the chances are that the yard has been 

 putting up vegetation, in the form of grass and 

 weeds, for several thousand years without much 

 encouragement to continue In the work, it be- 

 hooves the thoughtful house owner to feed it 

 15 



