THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
1?89 
The Home Acre 
Making a Tennis Court. 
Would you tell how to make a tennis 
court, actual dimensions it should he and 
whether gravel or clay top is .Referable? 
Trefethen, Me. WM. i T . stMON. 
The dimensions of a regulation tennis 
court are 116x78 feet, between the outside 
or marginal chalk lines, but in construct¬ 
ing a court, whether grass or of clay, it 
should be made at least 40xS2 feet. This 
gives a marginal boundary of two feet 
on eaeh side and end, beyond the outer 
chalk lines. The accompanying drawing 
illustrates the court in detail, showing 
the chalk lines, giving measurements of 
them, and just how the court will look 
when finished and marked for use. The 
court may be constructed of fine gravel 
as a foundation, with good clay on top, 
or may be constructed of all clay, but 
the materials must be of a nature that 
will pack well, and form a hard and 
durable surface. The depth of the ma- 
able crop in the garden this season has 
been had from the Fordhook Bush Lima 
beans. They have given us a plentiful 
supply through the Summer, and now, 
the 7th of October, we are still getting 
them, and the plants are full of bloom 
and young pods which Jack Frost will 
probably get before long. 
Dutch Roman Hyacinths. —I find 
these very useful for bedding. Why they 
call them Romans I cannot understand, 
for they are not at all like the Romans. 
The flowers are just as large as the reg¬ 
ular Dutch hyacinths, but spikes rather 
‘shorter, and they seem to preserve their 
character when grown here far better 
than the regular Dutch hyacinths. Bulbs 
grown here for several years make just 
as good spikes as the imported ones. I 
am planting 500 of these in named va¬ 
rieties. Another hyacinth which I find 
useful for bedding is the White Italian. 
This is more hardy than the Roman and 
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Diagram of Tennis Court. 
terial should be not less than three inch¬ 
es when finished and should not rise 
much if any above the surrounding 
ground surface, and should be quite level 
and free from bumps and hollows. A 
heavy roller will be required to compress 
the clay to a proper and durable solidity. 
Subsequent attention will consist of keep¬ 
ing the court free of weeds, a little level¬ 
ing occasionally, and going over it sev¬ 
eral times with a heavy hand roller after 
every rain. K. 
Motes from a Maryland Garden. 
Protecting Tender Roses. —The best 
method of protecting tender T.-a roses in 
Winter is to place a mound of sawdust 
over the roots and half-way up. It will 
not matter then if the top is all killed 
back to the sawdust mound, for these 
roses bloom on the young growth, and 
will be all the better for the hard prun¬ 
ing. This sawdust mound is very useful 
for other plants. I know an old plant 
of Erythrina Crista-galli, which for the 
past 4, 5 years has been sawed off at the 
base the late Fall after frost cuts the 
top, and a mound of sawdust placed over 
the stump. This is removed in Spring 
and the plant pushes up strongly and 
makes a splendid bloom every Summer. 
I have wintered Dahlias in the same 
way. 
The Mung Bean. —Some %ne down 
South sent me in late Spring some small 
drab-colored seeds, stating that they were 
seeds of the Mung bean, and better as a 
forage plant than the cow pea. The lit¬ 
tle seeds looked so much like okra seed 
that I at once concluded they were okra, 
but a closer examination showed that 
they were really seed of some sort of 
legume, and I planted them. The plants 
have made a very rank growth and have 
matured a quantity of seed. It is evi¬ 
dently a species of Yigna and rather near 
the cow pea, but promises to be far more 
prolific in seed than the cow pea. Mr. 
Ramsey, a seedsman from Sydney, Aus¬ 
tralia, was at my place, and seeing the 
plants, said that it was known as the 
Mung bean in New South Wales. I shall 
give it a further trial another season and 
plant it earlier. It would seem that it 
will mature seed well northward, for my 
plants were sown very late, and the 
growth has been stronger than any of 
the cow peas, except the Wonderful, 
which is too late for planting north of 
central North Carolina. 
Fordhook Beans. —The most remark- 
makes longer spikes of bloom. But the 
hardiness of the White Roman hyacinth 
depends largely on the time it is planted. 
Planted early in the Fall, it has the 
habit of growing at once, and will try to 
get into bloom about Christmas, and then 
of course gets damaged. But I find that 
the White Roman hyacinths do very well 
here if we defer the planting till the soil 
is cold in early December. Then they 
will remain dormant till early Spring 
and will do very well. 
Tender Narcissus. —The same is 
true of the Polyanthus Narcissus. I 
grow Paper Whites here in the open 
ground by deferring the planting till the 
soil is cold, for these too will start to 
grow at once if planted early. In North 
Carolina I have grown the Chinese lily, 
Narcissus Tazetta, outside with perfect 
success. Talking once many years ago 
with the late Peter Henderson, he said 
that while I could grow the bulbs in 
North Carolina, they would not bloom in 
water like the Chinese, for he had had 
some grown in Bermuda, and they failed 
to do well in water. I concluded that 
this was because Bermuda has no ripen¬ 
ing season as we have, and I took some 
of his Chinese bulbs home with me and 
placed them in water in my greenhouse 
alongside of some of mine. Mine were in 
bloom before the Chinese, and I took a 
photograph of both and sent it to Mr. 
Henderson. The growing of Narcissus 
bulbs is rapidly increasing in southern 
Virginia, and I believe that these bulbs 
will soon be produced here as well as the 
imported ones, and the Candidum lilies 
will be grown here as well as in France. 
Last year the trade took my lily bulbs s> 
closely that I sent an order to northern 
France for planting bulbs, and the order 
was accepted, but the war swept over 
that section and I did not get my bulbs, 
while a neighbor who ordered from Hol¬ 
land got several thousand very nice 
bulbs, but paid twice as much for them 
as I had contracted for in France. The 
Roman hyacinths and the White Italians 
make as good bulbs here as the imported 
ones. w. F. MASSEY. 
Mrs. Jonsing : “Dis hyah new minis¬ 
ter am a fine preachah, but he am de 
leanest an’ skinniest young man I ebbali 
see!” Mrs. Black: “Yes, an’ he done tole 
mah husband, what weighs two hundard 
an’ fo’ty, to bewar’ les’ he should be 
weighed in de balance an’ foun’ wantin’!” 
—Puck. 
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