1 lllllllllli 
LOCATING WALK WITH LINE. 
walks where a straight one would be much better. Every curve should be a sensible one ; that 
is, have a reason for its course ; therefore arrange your planting so as to make an apparent 
necessity for every turn. The idea is shown in the little sketch accompanying, where the walks 
curve to accommodate the trees. 
If the ground to be improved is only a small lot, it can be done best by the spade, and it is 
not well to endeavor to do it with the plow. In 
that case, mark out the walks first. Do this by 
setting up little sticks on the line you design for 
the road, as shown in the engraving, changing 
them until you get just the curve that seems graceful 
^and pleasant to the eye. Put a row of sticks on 
each side of the road, measuring carefully so as to 
get the width uniform. Another plan for securing 
the desired curve to walks is the use of a stout line. 
The idea is shown in the engraving. Next, remove the earth from the walk to about the depth 
of eighteen inches, using it to fill up any low places. The walks, of course, have somewhat 
the appearance of ditches. The operator is now prepared to pulverize the soil with the spade. 
Have it done thoroughly, sending the spade well down, and completely inverting the soil, but 
leaving about six inches on each side of the walk undisturbed for the present, so as not to break 
the line of the road. All stones found in digging should be thrown into the roads, and often 
sufficient will be obtained to fill wdthin six or eight inches of the surface ; if not, enough can be 
procured usually without much difficulty. The stone cutter's yards and the stone piles in the roads 
and fields generally furnish abundant material. When the walks are filled with this rough 
material to within six inches of the surface of the soil, the ground being raked off nice and 
smooth, dig the six inches left undug on the edges of the walks, being careful to keep the edges 
true and as originally staked out, and then set a turf about six inches wide for a border to the 
walk, as shown in the engraving, keeping the turf as 
low as the level of the adjoining soil, or a little 
lower, and to do this, remove two or three inches of 
the soil where the turf is to set, according to its 
thickness. 
A good deal of this rough work can be done in 
the autumn, so as to leave only the finishing up in 
the spring ; but if commenced in the spring, it should 
be hurried up so as to get the grass sown as early as possible, for grass seed will not start well 
unless it has the benefit of spring showers. Lawn Grass sown about the first of September, 
so as to have the benefit of autumn rains, will usually make a fine growth before frost, and be in 
excellent condition in the early spring, almost appearing like an old lawn by July. All being 
done as previously advised, sow the grass seed on the well prepared surface, raking it in, and if 
pretty dry, it is well to roll the soil after sowing. Sow Blue Grass, or a preparation of the most 
desirable grasses for lawns, sold as Lawn Grass, at the rate of /ottr bushels to the acre. In our 
Lawn Grass we always put a little Sweet Vernal Grass, on account of its delightful fragrance. 
If you use Blue Grass, get a little Vernal and use with it, a pound or two to the acre. Most 
persons also like a pound of White Clover to the 
acre. If the grass is sown early in the spring and 
the weather is at all favorable, by the first of July 
the lawn will look pretty green, and from the 
middle to the last of July will need cutting, and 
SECTION OF WALK. after that must be cut as often as the little lawn 
mower can get a bite. These lawn mowers are a real blessing, for not one in ten thousand 
can cut a lawn properly with a scythe, and therefore our lawns, before the introduction of 
moM'^ers, always looked wretched. 
It will be strange if a great army of weeds do not appear with the grass, but do not take it for 
granted that these weeds came from the grass seed sown, because if you had not sown any grass 
the weeds would have been just as abundant. The farmer who finds the weeds among his corn 
13 
WALKS WITH TURF EDGING. 
