May, 1910 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



207 



GARDEN NOTES 



CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DOWNING LAY 



LAWN MAKING 



PREPARING THE SOIL 



HE proper size for a lawn should be deter- 

 mined by each one for himself, gaging it 

 by the amount which he is able to spend 

 comfortably for the best possible prepara- 

 tion and first-class maintenance. 



Nothing is more vulgar or ostentatious 



than a lawn too large for the place, and 



nothing is more distressing than a seedy-looking lawn. No 



place, however small, should be all lawn and with a flower 



bed in the middle ! 



The area of carefully tended turf should be in proportion 

 to the size of the house, as well as in proportion to the 

 owner's pocket book, and the rest of the place should be 

 kept as pasture, meadow, or wood lot. 



The greatest beauty of a lawn comes from its neatness 

 and cultivation in contrast with the rougher and more nat- 

 ural looking pastures and meadows, and its harmony with 

 the refinement and beauty of detail of the house. 



Nothing is more important for the success of the lawn 

 than careful preparation of the soil, for on that depends 

 the growth and luxuriance of the grass and the smoothness 

 of the turf. No turf can be thick and close on poor soil, 

 and the richer the soil the better the lawn will be. Cutting 

 down the cost when making a lawn is foolish economy, be- 

 cause a lawn once laid down should never be dug up. It 

 is a permanent job and should be well done at the begin- 

 ning. 



The ground should first be cleared of stones, brush, 

 tree stumps and then deeply ploughed, but spading the 

 ground over by hand is better than ploughing because the 

 spading can be done more thoroughly. 



Trenching, as it is called, is the best possible preparation 

 for a lawn. This means digging a trench at one side of the 

 space to be prepared, then digging out the earth adjoining 

 the trench and filling the first trench with the earth taken 

 from the second and so on across the lawn. It is an expen- 

 sive operation. The depth to go in trenching depends on 

 the quality and depth of the soil. If it is a deep rich soil 

 one could go 18 to 24 inches deep, but if the top soil is 

 thin and the subsoil poor, one spade length may be enough. 

 Trenching turns the soil over, putting the old sods at the 

 bottom to rot and brings the old bottom layers to the top, 

 and it would be poor policy to dig up hard pan to put on 

 top of the good soil. So in shallow soils underlaid by a 

 poor hard pan, ploughing might be better than deep trench- 

 ing, and in this case the subsoil could be stirred up by a sub- 

 soil plough without bringing it to the top. 



In this spading or trenching all large stones and roots 

 should be taken out and the manure or fertilizer worked in. 



If the area is too large for spading then deep ploughing 

 should be done and in this case it would be well to start 

 early in the spring, turn the old sods over and sow clover, 

 cow pease, or some other nitrogen-gathering crop which 

 could be ploughed in August and the whole seeded with 

 blue grass before September. Seeding done after the first 

 of September is seldom successful; if it cannot be done be- 



fore that it would be better to delay it until the following 

 spring. 



After spading or ploughing, the lawn should be graded, 

 raked and seeded. 



If the grading changes the contour of the land very much 

 it may be necessary to strip the top soil, that is take it all 

 off and pile at one side, exposing the subsoil which can then 

 be graded as may be necessary. The top soil is then put 

 back on top, where it should be. Top soil is ordinarily too 

 valuable to bury. 



The amount of manure to put on is a difficult question. 

 On a large area it is always hard to get enough and I have 

 never seen a lawn too heavily manured. Twenty to thirty 

 cartloads per acre is a fair amount which could be doubled 

 without doing any harm. 



Chemical fertilizers, which are needed on some soils 

 rich in humus, must be used more cautiously. 



Two hundred pounds of superphosphate of lime, and one 

 hundred pounds of Peruvian Guano per acre may be used 

 together, but if one is used alone the quantity might be much 

 greater. Five hundred pounds of ground bone, five hun- 

 dred pounds of ashes, one-half ton agricultural lime, one 

 hundred pounds of nitrate of soda, per acre is the proper 

 quantity. 



All these should be spread on top of the ground and 

 harrowed in. 



Every autumn the lawn should have a good dressing of 

 barnyard manure, and with that ground bone or hard wood 

 ashes. 



In the spring nitrate of soda and the phosphates may be 

 applied. 



Kentucky Blue Grass, Rhode Island Bent, and Red 

 Top are the best lawn grasses. A pure turf is much 

 better than a turf of mixed grasses, but English Rye Grass 

 can be sown with Kentucky Blue Grass for a quick result. 

 Clover in a lawn is a matter of taste; get the purest seed 

 you can and sow it generously. 



Two to four bushels of seed per acre is the usual amount. 

 but on a tennis court it would be better to sow a bushel of 

 seed. The seed should be sown on a calm day and the 

 sower should go over the ground twice, in opposite direc- 

 tions. It will be done, of course, as soon as the ground is 

 fit to work in the spring, or if the ground was prepared in 

 the autumn the seed can be scattered evenly on the last snow 

 in March, or it may be sown when the ground is frozen but 

 has been thawed by the sun a little, and is wet and muddy 

 on top. This is a cheap way, as raking will be un- 

 necessary. After sowing in the spring a light raking should 

 be given. Large areas may be gone over with the brush- 

 harrow. 



After raking or brushing, the land should be rolled twice, 

 cross wise. 



When the young grass is high enough it should be topped 

 with a scythe, and after that it should be mowed often with 

 the mower, so often that the clippings need not be removed. 

 Weeding must be done constantly. 



Sodding on a large scale is too expensive to be considered, 

 but it may be done on a small terrace if good sod can be 

 bought, but good sod is hard to buy and poor sod is too 



