THE FORMATION AND CARE OF LAWNS AND GOLF-GREENS. 11 



THE FORMATION AND CARE OF LAWNS AND 

 GOLF-GREENS. 



By Maetin H. F. Sutton. 



[Lecture given on January 23, 1906.] 



Anyone who has travelled on the Continent must have been struck 

 with the systematic care which is lavished upon the production and 

 up-keep of the green sward. Lawn is a name hardly applicable to the turf 

 which the French, German, and Italian gardener has to create under con- 

 ditions so adverse compared with those obtaining in this country. On the 

 Riviera such green swards have often to be re-made year by year by the 

 fresh sowing of grass seeds, as the sun sometimes actually destroys the 

 plants during the scorching summer. 



It would be very interesting to give the experience that I have had 

 in providing a suitable prescription of grasses for these ephemeral 

 grass-plots. But our business is with English lawns and putting- 

 greens, and there are many divisions into which these two great subjects 

 naturally fall. 



Though all grass swards in gardens are lawns, yet the varieties of 

 lawns are much greater in England than elsewhere. While the foreigner 

 is content with a patch of grass as a setting to his flower-beds, the lawn 

 in England is expected to bear the wear and tear of constant use ; and 

 the uses to which lawns are put are so different, and the wear and tear 

 they undergo vary so greatly in degree, that it is necessary to make a new 

 lawn or to deal with an old one according to the uses to which it will in 

 future be put. 



Doubtless many persons still think the best way to form a lawn 

 is by laying turf which has been cut from adjoining fields, where it 

 may look fine in texture, and all that could be wished for. This 

 question I shall touch upon briefly ; but in view of the fact that all 

 the best practical gardeners have now come to the conclusion that 

 the only way to obtain a lawn absolutely free from plantain and other 

 weeds is to sow a grass-seed mixture, I shall confine the greater portion 

 of my remarks under this head to the formation of lawns by seed rather 

 than by turf. 



In order to keep strictly within the limits prescribed by the title that 

 has been suggested to me, I propose, in as few words as possible, to 

 divide this paper into two main sections, i.e. : — 



1. The formation, care, and after-treatment of lawns for general 

 purposes ; and 



2. The creation and subsequent treatment of putting-greens. 



The Formation of Lawns. 



Situation a7id Aspect. — When the formation of a lawn is contem- 

 plated, the first point for consideration is, of course, where it shall be. 

 Unfortunately, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the choice of 



