LAWNS AND LAWN-MAKING 201 



can also be used. They love moist, clayey, or loam} 7 

 soils. In gravelly or sterile soils in the northern 

 part, Canada blue-grass outranks its better-known 

 relative. 



ATLANTIC COAST 



From Maine to Maryland and Virginia blue-grass 

 does not thrive near the coast. The slight elevation, 

 heavy rainfall, and moist clay soils do not seem adapted 

 to its best development. Redtop and the bent grasses 

 are here at their best. They supersede blue-grass in 

 lower New England and at other points along the coast. 

 Over part of this area the soil is normally somewhat 

 acid, a condition apparently not harmful to species of 

 Agrostis. At Washington, D. G., redtop is being used 

 exclusively in new seeding on the Public Grounds. 



SOUTHERN STATES 



Bermuda grass is the standard lawn grass in most 

 of this region. It has all the characters of a good lawn 

 grass except that it is not resistant to frost. The first 

 heavy frost of autumn changes it from a beautiful 

 green to a light brown color, and thus it remains until 

 late in the following spring. Scarifying the sward with 

 the disk-harrow in the fall and sowing a winter grass, 

 such as Italian rye-grass, has been recommended and 

 has proved successful in some trials. St. Lucie grass, 

 a variety of Bermuda, and St. Augustine grass, a 

 coarser, creeping species of the Florida coast, are also 

 used. Korean lawn-grass is similar to St. Augustine 

 grass. All these are not frost resistant, or at best but 

 little more so than Bermuda. 



