EXECUTION OF SOME OF THE LANDSCAPE FEATURES 83 
especially if one has herbaceous borders, roses, and other plants 
that need a mulch. When the leaves are taken off the borders 
in the spring, they should be piled with the manure or other 
refuse and there allowed to pass into compost (pages 110, 111). 
If the land has been well prepared in the beginning, and its 
life is not sapped by large trees, it is ordinarily unnecessary 
to cover the lawn with manure in the fall. The common praec- 
tice of covering grass with raw manure should be discouraged 
because the material is unsightly and unsavory, and the same 
results can be got with the use of commercial fertilizers combined 
with dressings of very fine and well-rotted compost or manure, 
and by not raking the lawn too clean of the mowings of the grass. 
Spring treatment. 
Every spring the lawn should be firmed by means of a roller, 
or, if the area is small, by means of a pounder, or the back of a 
spade in the hands of a vigorous man. The lawn-mower itself 
tends to pack the surface. If there are little irregularities 
in the surface, caused by depressions of an inch or so, and the 
highest places are not above the contour-line of the lawn, the 
surface may be brought to level by spreading fine, mellow soil 
over it, thereby filling up the depressions. The grass will 
quickly grow through this soil. Little hummocks may be 
cut off, some of the earth removed, and the sod replaced. 
Watering lawns. 
The common watering of lawns by means of lawn sprinklers 
usually does more harm than good. This results from the fact 
that the watering is generally done in clear weather, and the 
water is thrown through the air in very fine spray, so that a 
considerable part of it is lost in vapor. The ground is also hot, 
and the water does not pass deep into the soil. If the lawn is 
watered at all, it should be soaked; turn on the hose at night- 
fall and let it run until the land is wet as deep as it is dry, then 
