Garden Suggestions 
CONDUCTED BY F. F. ROCKWELL 
Author of Home Vegetable Gardening and Gardening 
Indoors and Under Glass 
I N the rush of things that will require 
attention this month in the vegetable 
garden, such as sowing seed and setting 
out the early plants, and covered in detail 
in another part of this magazine, do not 
overlook the fact that you have to act now 
and to act promptly if you do not want 
the part of your garden in which you ex¬ 
pect to have annuals, biennials and peren¬ 
nials to remain more or less a bare spot 
during the first part of the summer. A 
half a day devoted to your flower garden 
now will make all the difference in the 
world both as to its earliness and as to its 
approach to your ideal; and before the 
season is over you will be able to look back 
and see that it was one of the best days’ 
work you put in. 
The vegetable garden, 
like the flower garden, has 
much to do with the beau¬ 
ty of your grounds and 
every effort should be 
made to keep it as trim 
and as attractive as pos¬ 
sible. 
Where, however, the lawn has never 
been made properly smooth and even, or 
where the ‘‘grade" which is equally im¬ 
portant with the smoothness of the surface, 
has not been properly made, a more strenu¬ 
ous treatment will have to be given. In 
bad cases, or where it can be done without 
inconvenience, the best way will be to re¬ 
make the lawn entirely. This probably 
will be no more expensive than trying to 
have it repaired, because a great deal of 
the work can be done with horses and plow 
and harrow, and it will be much more satis¬ 
factory to have done the work thoroughly 
in the beginning than to be continually in 
the throes of inconvenient patching and 
repairing, productive of poorer results. 
and just before a rain give your lawn a 
top-dressing with these. Spread the bone 
and ashes evenly until the ground looks 
slightly white, but put the soda on very 
sparingly. Twenty-five pounds will be 
sufficient for a space ioo feet square. If 
you will apply it about three times during 
the season at this rate you will be 
astonished at the effect upon the growth of 
your lawn. If you have a fairly good sod 
to start with, pulverized sheep-manure and 
prepared horse-manure are also excellent 
articles to use as top-dressings, and free 
from the many inconveniences of stable 
manure, which incidentally it is often very 
difficult to get in proper condition to use 
for this purpose. 
Care 
N° 
of the Lawn 
feature of the 
place has more ef¬ 
fect on its general appear¬ 
ance than the lawn. The 
first essential of a good 
lawn is smoothness. A 
perfectly even, smooth 
surface is necessary not 
only for looks but also be¬ 
cause without it the grass 
cannot be properly taken 
care of. Where the un¬ 
evennesses are only slight 
the lawn will be helped 
greatly by frequent rolling 
with a heavy roller. Es¬ 
pecially while the soil is 
moist enough (as it is 
early in the spring; al¬ 
though it should not be touched while in 
a wet condition) to be plastic to some ex¬ 
tent. Where there are holes and small de¬ 
pressions such as frequently occur where a 
comparatively new lawn has been made on 
a filled in foundation, it is necessary to go 
over the whole carefully in the spring and 
fill these with fine rich earth until they are 
built up level with the general surface after 
having been packed down. A little earth 
on top of the grass will not be injurious, 
as the grass will grow up through or where 
the earth is put too thick for this in 
patches it can easily be newly seeded. 
Procuring the Seed 
HP HE person with a small 
lawn will not usuallv 
bother to make 
mixture of 
his 
grasses 
The vegetable garden should be kept as trim as the flower garden, for it often 
has much to do with the appearance of the grounds 
own 
for 
seed, but he certainly 
should take every precau¬ 
tion to get only seed which 
he is very certain will be 
good, clean and honest. 
There are special grass 
seed mixtures on the 
market which are hardly 
worth the trouble of sow¬ 
ing to say nothing of the 
frequently exorbitant price 
asked. Sow the seed either 
over the whole lawn or 
over the spots which have 
been repaired, on a quiet 
day if it is possible and 
when the soil is fairly moist 
and then roll it in with a 
dressing of finely pulver¬ 
ized sheep-manure. This 
will greatly enhance the 
chances that this new seed 
will make a strong start 
and give you as satisfactory 
The Question of Fertilizing results as you had hoped for. 
T F you can get it underneath the soil 
where it will be out of the way, and 
in the position to do most good, there is 
nothing better than good manure with 
which to enrich your lawn. But do not, 
however, give your lawn a heavy top¬ 
dressing with it. There are other things 
which will give you results just as good or 
better, and be much less disagreeable and 
also much more convenient. Get a small 
supply of each of the following—nitrate 
of soda, fine ground bone and wood ashes, 
How to Water Properly 
'\X 7 ’ATER is the first requisite and the 
first remedy to try on your lawn 
should be in most cases an extra hundred 
feet of hose and a modern lawn sprinkler. 
Where the growing crop is kept dipt short 
and there is no possibility for cultivation 
as is the case with lawns, the soil dries out 
very rapidly. The new system of overhead 
makes possible what we heretofore have 
never had — fine American lawns. 
( 303 ) 
