A CHAPTER ON LAWNS. 183 



selves reflected, is ever an indispensable feature to a perfect land- 

 scape. 



How to obtain a fine lawn, is a question which has no doubt 

 already puzzled many of our readers. They have thought, perhaps, 

 that it would be quite sufficient to sow with grass seeds, or lay down 

 neatly with sods, any plat of common soil, to mow it occasionally, 

 to be repaid by the perpetual softness and verdure of an "English 

 lawn." 



They have found, however, after a patient trial in several seasons, 

 that an American summer, so bright and sunny as to give us, in our 

 fruits, almost the ripeness and prodigality of the tropics, does not, 

 like that of Britain, ever moist and humid, naturally favor the con- 

 dition of fine lawns. 



Beautiful as our lawns usually are in May, June, September, and 

 October, yet in July and August, they too often lose that freshness 

 and verdure which is for them what the rose-bloom of youth is to a 

 beauty of seventeen their most captivating feature. 



There are not wanting admirers of fine lawns, who, witnessing 

 this summer searing, have pronounced it an impossible thing to pro- 

 duce a fine lawn in this country. To such an opinion we can never 

 subscribe for the very sufficient reason that we have seen, over and 

 over again, admirable lawns wherever they have been properly 

 treated. Fine lawns are therefore possible in all the northern half 

 of the Union. What then are the necessary conditions to be ob- 

 served what the preliminary steps to be taken in order to obtain 

 them ? Let us answer in a few words deep soil, the proper kinds 

 of grasses, and frequent mowing. 



First of all, for us, deep soil. In a moist climate, where showers 

 or fogs give all vegetable nature a weekly succession of baths, one 

 may raise a pretty bit of turf on a bare board, with half an inch of 

 soil. But here it does not require much observation or theory to 

 teach us, that if any plant is to maintain its verdure through a long 

 and bright summer, with alternate periods of wet and drouth, it 

 must have a deep soil in which to extend its roots. We have seen 

 the roots of common clover, in trenched soil, which had descended 

 to the depth of four feet ! A surface drouth, or dry weather, had 

 little power over a plant whose little fibres were in the cool moist 



