210 MARKET GARDENING. 



If one of an inquiring mind takes up a sod from a 

 perfect grass pasturage and dissects it, he will find about 

 six or seven distinct plants to every square inch, or eight 

 hundred plants to the square foot, being about thirty- 

 five millions to the acre. To obtain such a thick sfcand 

 sufficient seed must be applied, or there will exist vacan- 

 cies for the establishment of weeds. It may be interest- 

 ing to enter into a calculation of how many seeds will 

 be applied to an acre in thirty pounds of a mixture 

 consisting of : 



Not less than an application of this number, of over 

 seventy-five millions of seeds, can be relied upon to prop- 

 erly clothe an acre, an enormous number of seeds failing 

 to make plants by reason of want of vitality, or 'on 

 account of inefficient tillage or sowing. While the pre- 

 ceding table, drawn for purposes of calculation, might 

 serve as a fair prescription, the writer would suggest the 

 following as covering a wide variety of seasons of growth, 

 and better as respects reproduction and duration : Blue 

 grass, ten pounds ; Orchard, ten pounds ; Perennial Eye 

 grass, four pounds ; Meadow Fox Tail, four pounds ; 

 Eed Top, three pounds ; Timothy, three pounds ; White 

 clover, three pounds ; Eed clover, three pounds, or forty 

 pounds in all. 



For lawns, either for surface effect, or designed to 

 resist tramping, or on athletic grounds, a mixture is 

 required, differing in each case, and both quite distinct 

 from that applied to pasturage or hay. A word upon 

 lawn-making may not be out of place, for the seedsman 

 is often blamed for bad seed, when the failure is the 

 result of a neglect of proper precautions to insure sue- 



