422 APPENDIX. 



<plou< r hin< f a good and cheap substitute for trenching that is to say 

 making the plough follow three times in the same furrow. This, with 

 manure, if necessary, will secure a depth of soil sufficient to allow the 

 roots of plants to strike below the effects of a surface drought. 



In sowing a lawn, the best mixture of grasses that we can recom 

 mend for this climate, is a mixture of Red-top and white Clover two 

 natural grasses found by almost every roadside in the proportion of 

 three fourths of the former, to one of the latter. 



There is a common and very absurd notion current (which we have 

 several times practically disproved), that, in order to lay down a lawn 

 well, it is better to sow the seed along with that of some grain ; thus, 

 starving the growth of a small plant by forcing it to grow with a 

 larger and coarser one. A whole year is always lost by this process 

 indeed more frequently two. Many trials have convinced us that the 

 proper mode is to sow a heavy crop of grass at once, and we advise 

 him who desires to have speedily a handsome turf, to follow the 

 English practice, and sow three to four bushels of seed to the acre. If 

 this is done early in the spring, he will have a lawn-like surface by 

 mid-summer, and a fine close turf the next season. 



After this, the whole beauty of a lawn depends on frequent mowing. 

 Once a fortnight at the furthest, is the rule for all portions of the lawn 

 in the neighborhood of the house, or near the principal walks. A 

 longer growth than this will only leave yellow and coarser stubble 

 after mowing, instead of a soft velvet surface. A broad-bladed English 

 scythe (to be had at the shops of the seedsman), set nearly parallel to 

 the surface, is the instrument for the purpose, and with it a clever 

 mower will be able to shave within half an inch of the ground, with- 

 out leaving any marks. To free the surface from worm casts, etc., it 

 is a common practice to roll the previous evening as much as may be 

 mown the next day.* 



* A very great improvement and economy in the keeping of lawns now-a- 

 days, is in the employment of the Lawn-cutter, by which one man, with a 

 horse -machine, will accomplish, in two or three hours, more than a dozen men 

 can in a whole day. The best English lawn-cutters will cut, roll, and gather 

 the grass from one acre, in one hour, where it is good, close turf, and there are 

 no trees to interfere with the action of the machine. 



