24 GARDENING FOR PLEASURE. 



tensive to be soddel, it can be sown with grass seed, which 

 will produce a good lawn in three or four months. 



Some of the fine lawns seen at Newport, K. I., are 

 composed almost entirely of Rhode Island Bent Grass 

 mixed with about one-sixth of white clover ; but the hu^ 

 miditv of the atmosphere there has no doubt more to do 

 with the richness of the lawn than the variety of grass it 

 is composed of. I may add a caution against the use of 

 spurious seed for this purpose. It is no uncommon thing, 

 either through ignorance or short-sighted economy, for 

 "hayseed" to be taken direct from the buy loft and sown 

 to form the lawn. If from good hay, the seed will be prin- 

 cipally orchard grass or timothy and red clover, and vain 

 would be all the attempts to get a smooth lawn from such 

 a source. It would be about as reasonable to expect tigs 

 from thistles. The mixtures of grasses prepared by the 

 seedsmen for the purpose are the simplest and safest to 

 use. If the soil is rich, and has been thoroughly pre- 

 pared, three bushels of the lawn grass mixture per acre 

 will be sufficient; but if thin and poor, from four to five 

 bushels had better be sown. If for small areas, sow at 

 the rate of one quart for a space twenty by fifteen, or three 

 hundred square feet. If sown in early spring, as soon as 

 the soil is dry enough to work, a good lawn will be 

 formed by midsummer the first year, if it has been mown 

 regularly at intervals of eight or ten days. The seed 

 must be sown as evenly as possible, and for this reason 

 a calm day must be chosen, as a very slight wind will 

 throw the seed into heaps. After sowing, the ground 

 may be lightly harrowed if the surface is large ; if not, 

 give it an even raking ; but in either case the ground 

 should be smoothed down with a roller or patted with a 

 spade, so as to form a smooth surface to be mowed. Al- 

 though, if a choice can be had, it is best to sow the lawn 

 seed in early spring, in this latitude in March, April, or 

 May, yet it can be sown nearly as profitably in September, 



