GENERAL CULTURE 203 
liminary treatment, sour soils need lime. 
Heavy soils are lightened by it, too, and as 
sour soils are invariably heavy, it serves a 
double purpose when applied to these. It 
changes the soil in such a way that the 
plant food in it is more readily taken up. 
Coal ashes are excellent to mix with earth that 
is sticky and heavy or stiff and cold. Stable 
manure is as good as any fertilizer that can be 
obtained, wherever it may be turned into the 
ground by spading; but never use it on a lawn 
under any circumstances, for the weed seeds 
which it contains will work more ruin in a 
single season than can be undone in many, if 
ever. Sheep manure only is suitable for lawn 
fertilizer; stable manure is fit only for the gar- 
den, where it can be used literally in the earth. 
Lawns 
The growth of a thick rich turf carpet is 
never a matter of exceptional soil nor of much 
enriching; rather it is a matter of careful me- 
chanical preparation of the soil in the first 
place, of selection of proper seed to suit the 
peculiarities of the site, if it have peculiarities, 
in the second, and of proper care third and 
finally. Nothing can be done with subsoil ex- 
