a THE LA WN. 



you will find that the young grass will get a better chance 

 to occupy the ground with their root feeders before the 

 roots of the weeds enter in and take possession. 



Having accomplished the plowing and cleaning, the 

 next thing is to do the grading. Now the grading is a 

 nice operation, which requires not only a good knowledge 

 of landscape gardening but an intuitive, artistic conception 

 of the best effect that can be produced under existing cir- 

 cumstances. It is not easy to convey any broad and gener- 

 ally reliable suggestions on this subject, so much depends 

 on individual surroundings and peculiarities of position. 

 However, I will endeavor to convey some idea of what 

 I mean. 



In the first place, the reader may, for instance, fancy 

 himself at his front door-step as the most important point 

 from which he should view his lawn. From this point he 

 must look on the view as a picture with an open centre and 

 boundary enclosure, the lawn being, for convenience of 

 illustration, the open centre, and the trees, shrubs, and 

 flowers the boundary enclosure. I insist upon this illustra- 

 tion because I want it understood that the lawn is to be 

 open ; there may be allowed a few outlying trees and 

 shrubs and flowers, but the lawn is to be practically open, 

 closely cut greensward, suitable for people to walk about 

 on and children to play on without obstruction. If this 

 end is not accomplished, I consider the lawn a failure. 



Looking from the front door-steps, we must first con- 

 sider our lawn as a comparatively flat surface — ^in a word, 

 as level. Of course nature does nothing stiffly or on abrupt 

 or rigid lines. Her work is one of infinite gradations or 



