44 
HO USE & GARDEN 
The broad, undulating sweep of a good lawn, unbroken by promiscuous 
planting, is one of the best features of successful landscape design 
LENGTHEN THE LIFE OF YOUR LAWN 
It Is Not So Much a Question of Subsequent Care as of Starting Right 
C. A. LE CLAIRE 
A CLOSE-MOWN, turf - cov¬ 
ered piece of pleasure 
ground”—thus the dictionary tact¬ 
fully defines a lawn. Far be it from 
us to dispute so revered an author¬ 
ity ; merely would we state that in 
actual fact innumerable “lawns” are 
not that. Bare patches or weed beds 
would better describe many of them, 
conditions more often attributed to 
the owner’s shiftlessness than to the 
real cause—a failure on his part to 
master the underlying principles of 
lawn making. The character of the 
soil, the topography of the land, and 
the kind of grass best adapted to the 
situation, all these are important fac¬ 
tors to be analyzed if the best results 
are to be obtained. 
Planning the Green 
Much, too, depends upon apprecia¬ 
tion of the lawn’s service as a setting 
for the house. In planning the home 
grounds, where space permits, the 
house should appear to be set well 
back in the lot. Each particular home 
presents a problem in itself. For 
artistic beauty and usefulness, how¬ 
ever, a few fundamental rules ought 
to be emphasized. 
Where the lot lacks dimension in 
comparison with the size of the 
house, the approach should be so 
arranged as to avoid, as far as pos¬ 
sible, cutting the lawn into small 
blocks. Often the placing of the en¬ 
trance to one side or even a slight 
adjustment of the walk will add rods 
to the visual size of the lawn. If 
the contour of the land is irregular 
the surface should be graded with a 
uniform slope from the foundation 
of the house down to the street. The 
natural roll of the land should not 
be distorted any more than is neces¬ 
sary to get the desired effect. A con¬ 
vex surface tends to magnify the 
breadth of the area when viewed 
from the street or highway. 
When the place is viewed at right 
angles as well as from in front, as is 
the case with corner lots, locating the 
walk or drive slightly below the level 
of the lawn will avoid a break in the 
green carpet when viewed from this 
point. If so arranged it is well to 
slope the lawn gently to the inner 
walk or drive, so as to facilitate 
mowing operations. Basement plant¬ 
ings of shrubs, with a few modest 
trees of the clean native sorts, can be 
used to produce the desired shade or 
obliterate an undesirable view, but a 
promiscuous use of trees, shrubs or 
flower beds scattered over the lawn 
is never good taste. 
Preparing the Soil for Grass 
Almost invariably the arrange¬ 
ment of the home grounds calls for 
a considerable amount of excavating 
A few trees properly placed will do no harm, 
provided long and attractive vistas are retained 
