When you do cut your grass for the first time, and for every time 
thereafter, have your lawn-mower set as high as possible, rather than 
as low as possible. That does not mean that you have to cut your 
lawn any oftener, only that your grass will always be perhaps half a 
inch longer than the shortest possible grass. Your grass, having more 
leaf or blade surface, is able to maintain a stronger root system. 
Another advantage of the longer grass is that dandelion seeds blow 
off such a lawn, for it is very difficult for them with their long fluffy 
tails to fall between the blades of grass that is long enough to move 
ever so slightly in the wind. A short lawn requires a gale to move it, 
but even a gentle breeze will sway a longer lawn. Perhaps an even 
greater advantage of the longer grass is the fact that a d?indelion's 
one object in life is to he out flat on the ground that its every leaf may 
be fully exposed to the sunHght, and thus escape the lawn mower, for, 
unlike the finer grasses, the dandelion cannot survive repeated cut- 
tings of its leaves. If the grass is always kept long, the dandehon can- 
not lie out flat, but must reach up to get the Hght, and the lawn mower 
catches the leaves, and after years of such cutting, it must die. 
A lawn should be thoroughly raked in the early Spring, as soon 
as the ground has settled enough so that you do not pull out the roots 
of the grass, then it should be rolled with a hght roller, and rolled as 
many more times during the Summer as possible, but always with a 
light roller. It should be raked again after the first cutting, and then 
should be mowed often enough so that the cHppings are never again 
raked off, but fall on the roots, to form a protection from the burning 
sun and to eventually return their valuable f ertihzer to the hungry roots. 
After the first raking in the Spring, give the lawn a dressing of equal parts 
of leaf-mold, sheep manure, and wood ashes, sifted together through 
a rather fine screen — the dressing to cover the lawn to a depth of one- 
fourth of an inch. After the first mowing, the lawn should receive 
ICO pounds of bone-meal and 50 pounds of tobacco dust for every 100 
feet square. A week later it should receive 100 pounds of linseed meal 
for the same area. A month later, give it another 100 pounds of Hn- 
seed meal. Be sure the linseed meal is put on on a dry day, as it is 
very sticky if it gets wet. 
Large weeds should be taken out of the lawn whenever you notice 
them, but once a year the lawn must have a thorough and systematic 
weeding. The surest way is to draw a string from one point of the 
lawn to another, and take out all the weeds along the string, then 
move the string six inches or a foot, and again take out aU the weeds. 
It is really the only way to get them all. DandeHons are best killed 
by dipping a small pointed stick into sulphuric acid, then punching the 
center of the dandehon. In a few days the dandeHons die and can 
be raked out of the grass and burned. Cutting them off, as is done in 
any ordinary weeding, makes not two grow where one grew before, but 
26 
