60 MY GROWING GARDEN 



obtaining for the grape-vines a fine trellis, evi- 

 dently durable enough, but too evidently more 

 than reasonably expensive, for the wire cost one 

 cent per foot. 



There was on the place a tangled mass of the 

 wire that had been removed from the grape trel- 

 lises of a generation gone, and this was entirely 

 intact, so far as rust was concerned. From that 

 bundle I used many pieces for varied purposes. 

 Later, seeing certain advertising of pure iron, I 

 pursued a correspondence which has put into my 

 tool-house now, for use this year, a coil of '^Armco" 

 iron wire, claimed to be really serviceable. 



In addition to being a good time for planting, 

 April is a proper month for much garden work in 

 the way of clearing the grounds. The lawn needs 

 raking, seed and fertilizer sowing and rolling; and 

 earliness counts in lawn-repairing and in lawn- 

 making just as it does in rose-planting. The 

 grasses seem to be full of willingness to work in 

 cool ground, and I have seen some curious happen- 

 ings out of the same seed-bag sown from three 

 weeks apart, as between an almost solid stand of 

 dandy little grass plants in the one early case, and 

 a nearly as solid stand of pesky weeds in the sad 

 later case. I know it is very much worth while to 

 mend lawns and to make lawns just as early as 



