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WEEDS CLEANING LAND. 
This we will divide into two parts, cleaning freshly dug land and cleaning 
existing turf. 
We always advise our customers to prepare the ground for a new lawn or 
green as long before the next seeding season as possible. This not only improves 
the soil and allows it to become consolidated naturally, but it gives an opportunity, 
which should not be lost, of freeing the land of the majority of the weeds that it 
may contain. As soon as the weeds appear hoe them down, but do not hoe 
deeply, as this will bring to the surface weed seeds which otherwise would be 
buried too deeply to grow. 
WEEDS—CLEANING TURF. 
Any annual weeds that may have escaped the hoeing will be extirpated by 
the mowing machine, so we can dismiss them from our minds. This leaves us the 
perennial weeds, which we will divide into three classes, as follows:—(i) Weeds 
with a long tap root, such as dandelions, docks, and certain of the rib grasses ; 
(2) weeds with roots like a tassel, such as plantains, hawkweed, &c.; (3) weeds 
which travel above or below the surface, throwing out new roots and growth 
every few inches, such as daisies, yarrow 7 , and some of the clovers. 
We cannot impress on the minds of our readers too strongly the advisability 
of weeding systematically. Divide the lawn into strips about 3ft- wide, by means 
of string and pegs, and thoroughly clean one strip before going on to another. It 
is almost incredible how quickly a lawn can be freed from weeds in this manner. 
Meandering about a lawn with a spud in one hand and a basket in the other is a 
laborious and ineffective way of weeding a lawn, as a number of weeds are bound 
to be missed. 
TAP=ROOTED WEEDS. 
To free a lawn from tap-rooted weeds, divide the lawn into strips about 
3ft. wide, take a Sussex trugg basket to hold the weeds and a border fork with 
four flat prongs. Now to remove the weed successfully it is necessary to guess the 
depth of the root. Well-grown dandelions and docks will go down over a foot, 
the smaller ones and the rib grass about 6ins. In the first case, force the fork into 
the turf as deep as it w T ill go, and as far from the weed as the length of the prongs. 
By depressing the handle of the fork the turf will be forced up like a mole hill. If 
the distance has been guessed correctly it will crack on either side of the weed, 
which can then be removed easily. In the case of the smaller weeds, force the 
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