THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



pratensis. It weighs but 14 pounds to 

 the bushel. Not less than three bush- 

 els should be sown to the acre. We 

 want many very small items of grass, 

 not a few large ones ; for we are making 

 a lawn, not a meadow. 



Do not sow grain with the grass seed. 

 The June-grass grows slowly at first, 

 however, and therefore it is a good plan 

 to sow timothy with it, at the rate of 

 two or three quarts to the acre. The 

 timothy comes up quickly and makes a 

 green ; and the June-grass will crowd it 

 out in a year or two. If the land is 

 hard and inclined to be too dry, some 

 of the clover will greatly assist the June- 

 grass. Red clover is too large and 

 coarse for the lawn. Crimson clover is 

 excellent, for it is an annual, and it does 

 not become unsightly in the lawn. 

 White clover is perhaps the best, since 

 it not only helps the grass but looks 

 well in the sod. One or two pounds of 

 seed is generally sufficient for an acre. 



How to make the border planting. — 

 The borders should be planted thick. 

 Plow up the strip. Never plant these 

 trees and bushes in holes cut in the sod. 

 Scatter the bushes and trees promiscu- 

 ously in the narrow border. In home 

 grounds, it is easy to run through these 

 borders occasionally with a cultivator, 

 for the first year or two. 



Make the edges of this border irre- 

 gular. Plant the lowest bushes on the 

 inner edge. 



For all such things as lilacs, mock 

 oranges, Japan quinces, and bushes that 

 are found along the road sides, two or 

 three feet apart is about right. Some will 

 die anyway. Cut them back one half when 

 they are planted. They will look thin 

 and stiff for two or three years ; but 

 after that they will crowd the spaces 

 full, lots over on the sod, and make a 

 billow of green. 



Kind of Plants. — The main planting 

 should be for foliage effects. That is, 

 think first of giving the place a heavy 

 border mass. Flowers are mere de- 

 corations 



Select those trees and shrubs which 

 are the commonest, because they are 

 the cheapest, hardiest and most likely 

 to grow. There is no district so poor 

 and bare that enough plants cannot be 

 secured, without money, for the school 

 yard. You will find them in the woods, 

 in old yards, along the fences. It is 

 little matter if no one knows their 

 names. What is handsomer than a 

 tangled fence row ? 



Scatter in a few trees along the fence 

 and about the buildings. Maples, bass- 

 wood, elms, ashes, buttonwood; pepper- 

 ridge, oaks, beeches, birches, hickories, 

 poplars, a few trees of pine or spruce, 

 or hemlock, — any of these are excellent. 

 If the country is bleak, a rather heavy 

 planting of evergreens about the border, 

 in the place of so much shrubbery, is 

 excellent. 



For shrubs, use the common things 

 to be found in the wood and swales, 

 together with roots which can be had in 

 every old yard. Willows, osiers, witch 

 hazel, dogwood, wild roses, thorn apples, 

 haws, elders, sumac, wild honeysuckles, 

 — these and others can be found in 

 every school district. From the farm 

 yards can be secured snowballs, spireas, 

 lilacs, forsythias, mock oranges, roses, 

 snowberries, barberries, flowering cur- 

 rants, honeysuckles and the like. 



Vines can be used to excellent pur- 

 pose on the outbuiJdings or on the 

 school-house itself. The common wild 

 Virginia creeper (shown on the right in 

 Fig. 1566) is the most serviceable. On 

 brick or stone school houses the Boston 

 ivy or Japanese ampelopsis may be 

 used, unless the location is very bleak. 

 Honeysuckles, clematis and bitter-sweet 



126 



