32 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
Bermuda grass greens. The green build¬ 
ing process as used there some years ago 
was as follows: The greens were cov¬ 
ered with a growth of Bermuda grass, 
and during the summer when the course 
was not in use, the Bermuda was as care¬ 
fully maintained as if being played on, 
as it was desired to keep the Bermuda 
grass turf as a foundation for the green. 
About the first of October the knives 
of the mowing machines were set low and 
the grass cut very short. Each green was 
then fertilized with 500 pounds of tank¬ 
age and the fertilizer watered well into 
the soil. The greens were then sowed 
with about seventy-five pounds of Italian 
Rye grass seed and top dressed with suf¬ 
ficient good compost to thoroughly cov¬ 
er all of the seed. The ground was kept 
moist during the period of germination, 
was rolled slightly before the first cutting 
of the grass, and the grass was cut just 
as soon as tall enough for the mower to 
catch it. 
This general process with variations, 
has been since followed on the links of the 
St. Augustine Country Club and on those 
of the Ormond Beach course. At present 
a mixture of Red Top, Red Fescue, and 
Italian Rye is used instead of Rye only 
on these two courses. 
During seasons of average temperature 
this practice produces excellent greens at 
these localities, for it is usually cold 
enough to retard the. growth of the Ber¬ 
muda sufficiently so that it scarcely ap¬ 
pears on the surface of the green at all 
until late in the season, when it begins 
to crowd out or smother the other grass¬ 
es, making the green slower and coarser. 
The warmer the winter season, the more 
quickly the Bermuda takes possession of 
the green, and the colder it is the more 
its appearance is retarded. 
At the Palm Beach Country Club 
course, on the other hand, the same pro¬ 
cess resulted about February first in 
greens entirely of Bermuda grass with 
its objectionable features. This, of 
course, was due, to the fact that the aver¬ 
age temperature at Palm Beach is several 
degrees higher than that at Ormond 
Beach or St. Augustine. It was therefore 
necessary to retard somewhat further the 
appearance of the Bermuda grass. 
This was attempted by scalping the 
whole green with a weeding hoe, remov¬ 
ing the grass tops entirely and leaving 
only the masses of roots undisturbed in 
the ground as the foundation for the 
green. The mulching was then spread 
on, and the green seeded as before. This 
treatment did cause a somewhat later ap¬ 
pearance of the Bermuda grass, but not 
sufficiently so; as the fertilizer and wa¬ 
ter which were necessary to force the 
growth of the seed, together with the 
mild winter climate at Palm Beach, re¬ 
sulted in a Bermuda grass green before 
the. season was half over. 
The next step was to do away with the 
Bermuda grass foundation entirely and 
depend altogether upon producing a turf 
of northern grasses, strong enough to 
stand the wear and tear of a putting 
green. This had not previously been 
thought possible as it was impracticable 
to sow the grass seed until October, the 
sun being so hot before that time that it 
would kill the grass soon after germina¬ 
tion. The results of this latter method 
were so successful at the Palm Beach 
