417 PARK AND CEMETERY . 
THE MAKING OF A GOOD LAWN 
Most people think of 2 . lawn as con- 
sisting simply of grass, but from a 
landscape gardener’s point of view, 
it includes trees, shrubs, herbs and 
flowers. In this paper, a lawn will 
be considered as an open, more or 
less level surface of grass, closely 
cut and of a “carpet-like” appearance, 
which has been made to enjoy, and 
not to keep off of, as is generally 
the case. 
A lawn which will not stand the 
playing of children and the walking 
on of numerous people, I consider a 
failure. It takes years of patient care 
to produce such a lawn, but it is well 
worth the effort. A lawn should, to a 
certain extent, constitute an outdoor 
living room for the family, a large 
part of the year. There is nothing 
more beautiful and refreshing than a 
perfect emerald green lawn framed 
with irregular plantations of trees, 
shrubs and flowers. 
The preparation of the land before 
seeding is of the utmost importance, 
and as a rule absolutely neglected. 
Generally the soil excavated when the 
building was erected is spread over 
the surface, covering what in many 
instances was good soil with the 
poorer subsoil, and without any other 
preparation, the seed is planted and 
good results expected. 
Such a lawn can not be anything 
but a disappointment. The weeds 
will start ahead of the grasses, smoth- 
ering them out. 
I will now trj' to explain how to go 
about preparing the soil for a lawn, 
supposing we are working on a piece 
of land as we ordinarily find it. 
First plow it as deeply as possible, 
picking out all stones, roots, large 
weeds and other rubbish as we go 
along, then harrow the land several 
times, continuing the removal of 
rocks, roots, etc., as they come to 
the surface. Now we should do our 
grading, and grading is an operation 
which is easier done than explained. 
We should aim to follow up the nat- 
By L. P. Jensen in Bulletin of Missouri 
State Board of Horticulture. 
ural contour of the ground, and 
should never try to make the lawn 
absolutely level, except for very for- 
mal work such as terraces and tennis 
grounds. There is no perfect level 
in natural ground, but the gradations 
consist of very gentle curving lines 
joining each other almost unnotice- 
able to the eye. This natural effect 
we should try to keep. 
Where the soil is of such a char- 
acter as to hold the water on the 
surface after a rain draining is nec- 
essary. 
The grading finished, we must go 
about making the soil rich, remember- 
ing that we can not cultivate our 
lawns after seeding. For this purpose 
I prefer well decomposed stable 
manure. Use an abundance of it, 
thirty, forty or even fifty loads to 
the acre not being too much. Plow 
this under although it is liable to 
bring some weeds, and the soil will 
probably contain seeds of many more. 
For this reason it would be advisable 
to precede the lawn-making by plant- 
ing the land for a season to a hoed 
crop such as corn or potatoes. By 
keeping this crop alsolutely clean you 
will do away with most of the weeds, 
your soil will be rich and full of 
humus, and you have paved the way 
for a good lawn. If good, thoroughly 
decomposed manure can not be ob- 
tained, the same result may be ac- 
complished by sowing cowpeas or 
crimson clover, turning the crop un- 
der and also adding about 3,000 
pounds to the acre of ground bone 
meal at the time of harrowing the 
ground. Chemical fertilizers are 
good to use as a top dressing for 
feeding the lawn after it is finished, 
but for the preparation of the land 
for lawn purposes, humus is what is 
needed in most soils. Never use chemi- 
cal fertilizers on the ground just be- 
fore seeding as they will as a rule 
destroy the seeds. The question of 
chemical fertilizers will be taken up 
later. 
Kind of Lawn Grass to Use. 
There is and has been considerable 
discussion as to which is the best 
kind of grass to use for a lawn and 
whether to use one kind alone or a 
mixture of grasses. The Kentucky 
blue grass (Poa pratensis) is the 
grass which seems best adapted for 
this purpose in the northern and mid- 
dle states. It is close growing with 
creeping underground root stocks 
and makes a soft carpet of a deep 
rich green color. Kentucky blue 
grass is, however, slow in growth un- 
til well established, and it takes two 
or three years to form a good lawn 
with it if used alone and in the mean- 
time strong growing weeds are liable 
to take possession of the ground. 
I have tried various mixtures and 
for general use I think a mixture of 
one-fourth English rye grass (Lolium 
perenne, var. tenue), one-fourth fancy 
red top (Agrostis alba, var. vulgaris), 
and one-half Kentucky blue grass 
would prove satisfactory. The Eng- 
lish rye and the red top germinate 
and grow quickly, covering the 
ground which would otherwise be 
taken up by weeds, until the slower 
growing blue grass takes possession 
of the soil. White clover is often 
used in lawn mixtures, the leaves 
being of about the same color of 
green as the blue grass and many 
persons like the sprinkling of white 
flowers in summer. I, however, only 
use it on places which are liable to 
be infested with crab grass, in which 
case it becomes very useful. 
Always use the very best and 
cleanest seeds for lawns. Cheap seeds 
are full of chaff and weed seeds. Ab- 
solutely pure seeds are perhaps im- 
possible to obtain, but much purer 
seeds can be obtained now than a few 
years ago on account of vast im- 
provement in seed-cleaning machin- 
ery. Let the seedsman give you a 
small sample of the seeds you intend 
to use, send this sample to your ex- 
periment station and have it tested as 
