28 
GRAND RAPIDS GROWERS, Inc., Grand Rapids, Michigan 
Grass Seed for Lawns and Golf Courses 
Making a Lawn and Its Care 
The lawn forms the floor of the outdoor living room. 
Beauty and permanence are the main features to 
strive for in the construction and maintenance of the 
lawn. 
To be pleasing, the lawn turf must be dense, vigor¬ 
ous, and free from weeds. It must maintain its velvety 
green growth throughout the season. The possession 
of such a lawn requires that it be properly constructed 
and systematically fed. 
Preliminary Points to 
Consider 
The best time to seed the new lawn is either in the 
early spring or early fall. At these two seasons of the 
year, the temperatures are ordinarily cool and the 
rainfall plentiful—two conditions which are especially 
favorable for a steady growth of young grass. If the 
seeding is done in the summer, more attention to 
watering will be necessary as the soil for grass seed¬ 
lings must be kept moist. 
Preparing the Soil 
The most desirable soils for the lawn are the loams. 
If the soil available for the building of the lawn is 
a tight clay or a sandy soil, it should be made as 
nearly like a loam as possible. 
Even such simple tasks as spading are important 
and should be done with care. The depth of the sur¬ 
face soil largely determines the depth to which one 
should spade. If the top soil is six inches or less in 
thickness, work it to the depth of the surface soil. 
Do not turn up the subsoil. 
To get the best results from spading, each shovelful 
of soil is turned over and placed upon the edge of the 
hole away from the spader. It is then pulverized with 
a tap of the spade. This not only breaks up the mass 
but carries the granulated soil back into the hole from 
which it was originally taken. 
After the spaded soil has been well pulverized, grade 
the soil to slope gently from the house. The grading 
will prevent water from standing around the founda¬ 
tion of the house. Next, level and roll until the seed 
bed is firm. 
Applying Plant Food 
When the seed bed is completed, plant food should 
be applied. The lawn is never so effectively fed as just 
before the grass seed is sown. The plant food should 
be spread evenly over the surface of the soil at the 
rate of four pounds per hundred square feet, and 
worked into the top few inches. 
Sowing Seed 
After the plant food has been worked into the soil, 
the seed should be spread uniformly over the surface 
at the rate of four to five pounds per one thousand 
square feet of soil. 
A cover of clean straw or coarse cheesecloth on the 
steep slopes will help to prevent washing which may 
occur before the grass becomes established. 
Maintaining the New Lawn 
Regardless of how carefully the new lawn has been 
started it must be painstakingly cared for during the 
first summer, if it is to develop into a lawn with a 
uniform, thick turf. 
The new lawn should be watered often enough to 
keep the soil moist. Frequent and light waterings 
are best until after the grass becomes established. 
When there is no longer danger of washing the young 
plants from their anchorage, the soil should be thor¬ 
oughly soaked to a good depth at each watering. The 
water should always be applied in the form of a fine 
spray. 
Careful clipping of the grass is necessary to main¬ 
tain a tidy appearance of the lawn and to prevent 
annual weeds from going to seed. Frequent clippings, 
which do not allow the grass to become more than 
three inches high, are desirable. Never cut the grass 
shorter than one and one-half inches. The clippings 
should always be removed from the lawn; otherwise 
there is danger of their matting and injuring the 
grass. Lawn clippings make excellent raw material for 
the compost pile. 
Feeding 
About eight or ten weeks after the lawn is seeded, 
the young grass should again be fed with plant food. 
The application is made at the rate of two pounds per 
one hundred square feet of lawn. 
Plant food should be applied when the grass is dry 
and then brushed from the grass with a broom or the 
back of a rake. The lawn should immediately be given 
a thorough soaking to wash the plant food from the 
grass and carry it into the soil. 
