FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
29 
a variety of good soils, such as sandy 
loam, clay and muck, the cost of construc¬ 
tion and maintenance is much lowered. 
The methods pursued in construction 
have a most important bearing on the 
quality of the turf produced, the cost of 
producing it, and on the cost of the. future 
maintenance of the course. In the con¬ 
struction of greens, tees, bunkers, 
mounds, traps, in the cutting or filling 
of fairways, and in any other work in 
which the natural lay of the soil is dis¬ 
turbed, it is most important that the top 
soil be. replaced on the top, and not bur¬ 
ied with the soil from below the surface; 
for most of our Florida soils are light 
and the top strata only is capable of sup¬ 
porting a vigorous growth of turf. Scat¬ 
tering or burying of top soil in construc¬ 
tion work will result in poor turf, which 
condition can be remedied only in two 
ways; either by heavy fertilization, which 
is expensive, and affords only temporary 
relief, or by bringing in top soil from 
elsewhere to supply the deficiency, which 
is a very expensive process. 
The building of a fairway consists 
briefly in four operations; first clearing 
and grubbing the land;, second, draining 
where necessary; third, plowing and har¬ 
rowing; and fourth, planting the grass. 
The first operation needs no further 
mention except that the grubbing should 
be so thorough that palmetto, compte 
and similar growth will not be liable to 
spring up in the fairways after the grass 
is planted. 
In some places a considerable drain¬ 
age system may be required. On flat 
ground, slight depressions may be exca¬ 
vated with just sufficient grade to carry 
the excess water away rapidly. These 
may have, side slopes sufficiently gentle 
to cause no inconvenience to the player, 
after they have been covered with turf. 
The use of these grassy hollows in con¬ 
nection with lines of drain tile will solve 
most drainage problems in a satisfactory 
manner. 
After the drainage has been provided 
for, the soil should be prepared for grass 
planting by thoroughly pulverizing it to 
a depth of about five inches. I have 
built fairways where this latter work had 
to be done mostly with a road roller and 
a scarifier, but it is certainly much pref¬ 
erable to build them where the. land may 
be properly prepared with a tractor, a 
plow, a harrow, a pulverizer and a drag. 
Too deep plowing should be guarded 
against, especially where the soil is very 
light and practically all of the plant food 
is very near the surface. It is well to 
emphasize that all soils should be thor¬ 
oughly cleaned of trash before planting 
and that heavy soils cannot be too finely 
pulverized. 
Very little of what has been written 
in books on golf construction relative to 
turf culture, will apply to conditions in 
this State. For instance, we are almost 
invariably directed to use fertilizer or 
humus or both on newly cleared land be¬ 
fore planting grass. On the heavier new¬ 
ly cleared soils Bermuda grass will pro¬ 
duce a good turf without fertilizer for the 
first two or three years, after which some 
fertilization will be required to maintain 
a healthy growth and a good color. The 
lighter soils are seldom too light or too 
poor to produce a good growth of Bermu¬ 
da for at least the first season after clear- 
