Lawn Maying 
JOHN WILK & CO. 
Making and Maintaining of Good Lawn 
The lawn is the final setting that either makes a garden and home neat and picturesque 
or gives it an element of untidiness. A good lawn is the ambition of every home owner and a 
thing that is easily accomplished and still more easily maintained if one practices a little 
forethought in the initial making. 
Assuming that the ground to be transformed into a lawn is in the trodden and rough 
condition as usually left when the builders of the residence have finished, the whole surface 
should be thoroughly spaded up, all broken bricks, tiles, etc., raked off and a trench opened 
along the lowest point of grading into which these may be thrown to act as a blind drain. 
In grading allow a gentle slope away from the house, gradually coming to a level at a dis¬ 
tance of 6 feet or 8 feet out. When the subsoil grading is finished the original top soil, 
or other top soil must be spread over the whole for a depth of from 4 to 6 inches. Try and 
procure clean soil for this purpose, that is, soil free from such roots as dandelions, plantain 
and other obnoxious weeds or their seeds. Indeed the seedsman is often blamed for their 
growth, whereas if no seed had been sown they would still have appeared. 
When top soil is of a sandy or gravelly nature, well decayed humus or stable manure 
must be added liberally, to give it a fibrous spongy texture, and on the other hand if it is 
heavy or clayey, sand and lime (slaked) may be added to create pores for drainage, and 
for nourishment to be carried to the roots of the topsod. After the top soil has been raked 
and leveled, mark off such flower beds and borders as are intended to be made. 
Fertilizers. If stable manure has been used in the making, as suggested above no addi¬ 
tional fertilizer will be necessary; if absent, then sheep manure, bone meal or what is known 
as 3-9-2 Lawn and Garden Dressing should be spread over the surface, two handfuls to a 
square yard, and raked in till covered. 
Seeding. Here is the all important factor in deciding whether your lawn is to be a success 
or not. Unfortunately there are many kinds of cheap so-called lawn seed mixtures available, 
that are often composed of nothing but common hay seeds and chaff, with a liberal assembly 
of all sorts of menacing weeds that overwhelm and choke any grass seed that may struggle 
for existence. 
Wilk’s “Evergreen” and Wilk’s “Shady Nook” Lawn Mixtures are prepared from formulas 
resulting from careful tests as to what grasses are most suited for producing a dwarf, com¬ 
pact, green, velvety sward on soils of varying texture. Wilk’s “Shady Nook” mixture is es¬ 
pecially recommended for sowing on the shaded portions of the lawn, or under trees. The 
prices of these mixtures are commensurate with the quality of the seeds they contain, many of 
which cost wholesale more than the retail prices, at which I sell the complete mixtures. I 
have been selling these mixtures for years, and many of the beautiful lawns seen on some 
of the best private estates in and around New York were seeded with these mixtures. 
Time to Seed. Lawn seed may be sown in spring or fall with equally good results. In 
spring when snow and frost begin to disappear and the ground is again workable. In the 
fall, August or September are the best months to sow, though October sowings invariably 
prove satisfactory. 
Seeding. Five pounds of seed to a thousand square feet is the least that will produce a 
good lawn; this quantity may be increased where a thick lawn is wanted quickly. 
Sow the seed with the hand moving slowly up and down the ground working the hand 
close to the ground in a broad sweeping movement. After distributing the seed as evenly 
as possible in one direction, start again, and repeat the operation across the lawn, at right 
angles to the first sowing. After sowing go over the ground very lightly with a rake (cover¬ 
ing the seed not more than one-quarter of an inch), put a roller over the whole, or flatten 
small sowings with the back of a spade. Watering with a fine spray should be attended to 
daily. When the grass is about an inch high, it should be rolled again, and get its first cut¬ 
ting when about 2 inches long. Bare spots should be reseeded immediately. Regular water¬ 
ing and cutting is necessary to maintain a good lawn, do it as regularly as you can spare the 
time. 
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