CLAY. 
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Clay is rarely used for top-dressing lawns or greens, although “ Nottingham 
Marl ” is frequently used for top-dressing cricket pitches, to enable them to resist 
the pounding and hard wear to which they are subjected. 
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MANURES, ARTIFICIAL. 
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Artificial manures require careful handling. They do not act equally on all 
soils, and unless one quite understands what the manure consists of, and whether 
it is suitable for lawns, it is quite possible to get a very different result than that 
anticipated. A case in point: A gardener was advised to dress his lawns with 
bone dust, which he did. Before he applied the bone dust they were practically 
free from clover, but after the first application it at once asserted itself, and quickly 
overpowered the grass, greatly to the annoyance and wonderment of the man, who 
unknowingly had supplied the clover with just the food most suitable to its 
constitution. 
It should always be remembered that the “grass” referred to in text books on 
manures is always grass as found in pastures or for hay, not lawn grass, and as 
coarse grasses and clovers are very valuable in hay fields and pastures, it is quite 
easy to see how a mistake can be made. An amateur should apply only such com¬ 
posts or artificials as are prepared by experts. 
TURF. 
The only point in favour of turf is that it looks well immediately it is 
laid, in fact it often looks better then than it ever does afterwards. 
It is difficult to give the cost of turf, as the price of cutting, carting, and laying 
varies in almost every district. If we put it at £100 per acre, that is, about 15,000 
turfs, 3 ft. long by 1 ft. broad, at 10s. per 100, £25 for laying, etc., this would be a 
low price, and in most cases it would be exceeded. Bought turf consists chiefly of 
coarse meadow grasses, clovers, and weeds, quite unfit to be used for a lawn. If 
turf is laid in the spring, it stands a very serious chance of being destroyed should 
hot or dry weather set in ; or, if it does not absolutely destroy the turf, most of the 
finer and most valuable grasses will perish, leaving alive the coarse grasses, clovers, 
and weeds. 
Turf must be laid during the autumn to get the best results ; even then, it is 
the most expensive and unsatisfactory mode of making a lawn. 
Only City Address: 53A, Queen Victoria Street, E.C. 
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