802 MANAGEMENT OF [chap. ix. 
jections and recesses, and resting their lower 
branches, frequently covered with flowers, 
on a rich smooth velvet-looking carpet of 
grass. ' 
Every one possessing a lawn of this de¬ 
scription must be aware that its chief beauty 
consists in its smoothness, and in the firm¬ 
ness and closeness of its grasses. I say 
grasses, because strange as it may sound to 
unbotanical ears, from twenty to thirty dif¬ 
ferent kinds of grasses sometimes enter into 
the composition of a square foot of fine turf. 
Some of these grasses are coarse and grow 
high, and widely apart; and others are very 
fine and slender, and grow closely together. 
This being the case, it is obvious that when 
a fine smooth turf is required, the finer kinds 
of grasses should be chosen, and the coarser 
ones not only rejected among the grass- 
seeds sown, but, if possible, destroyed when¬ 
ever they appear, if they should chance to 
come up accidentally. 
Botanists have distinguished and arranged 
nearly fifteen hundred different species of 
grasses; and of these probably more than 
three hundred kinds are now cultivated in 
