GARDEN GADGETS 
Forks, hoes, rakes, spades or what common garden tools 
you need—we don’t have them. Buy them from your 
favorite hardware dealer; he has as good as we can get. 
Over the years we have found few special-purpose gar- 
den tools that lived up to their promotions. Here are the 
ones we recommend. 
Dutch Hook Each $2.75 
This is the small, forged, sharp weeder the Dutch use for 
hooking weeds out of daffodil and tulip rows. We use it 
for all kinds of close weeding. It has an 18-inch handle— 
you have to stoop. 
Stainless Steel Trowel Each $4.50 
Imported from England and a permanent tool. It is 
forged, will not rust and the handle stays on. If you don’t 
want to spend that much on a trowel for yourself (and 
it is expensive) it would make an excellent gift—or 
Garden Club prize. 
Stainless Steel Hand Fork Each $2.50 
Companion to the above. 
Krasco Hand Grass Seeder Each $4.95 
A small hand tool working on the principle (centrifugal) 
of big farm tractor seeders. It will spread Bent and Blue- 
grass evenly and at the same time—something no $15 
hand-pushed seeder will do. Also, it is the only seeder 
that will distribute our Special Lawn Grass Seed, mostly 
a mixture of Fescues. Good grass seed costs a lot of 
money and this dingus will save its cost on the first 10 
pounds of seed put through it. (We use it for seeding 
an acre and a half of lawn.) 
Ensign Rifle Each 95c¢ 
A rifle, you will find in Webster’s, is also a stick covered 
with emery. Such a stick is a blade sharpener and this 
product is the best sharpener for a scythe or sickle or 
knife we know about. It is light, easy to use, long-lasting. 
It’s been made in a tiny factory within four miles of 
The Farm since 1800. 
Lawnmowers 
We don’t carry them but we’ve had lots of experience. 
The most satisfactory power mowers we have bought are 
the Locke and the Toro Professional. Both are in use on 
The Farm. Our next purchase in this field will be the 
Toro self-propelled Whirlwind; this rotary mower will 
cut down and practically pulverize brush. Buy from your 
local dealer but pick one who runs a service depot, too. 
Garden Hose 
Hose takes a terrible beating around here and right 
now the plastic hose made by Goodrich is doing the best 
job. It’s light, retains high flexibility in cold weather, 
and connection breaks have been nil. (Six months’ use 
here would probably equal six years around a garden.) 
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Stanley Lawn Trimmer 
This remarkable electric tool saved its cost ($69.50 now) 
the first summer. It trims grass evenly and quickly. Four 
hours, we found, equals three days of hand edging and 
at $1.00 plus an hour for labor that is quite a saving. 
Buy it from your local dealer. Be sure, though, it’s a 
Stanley and not a substitute. 
YOUR LAWN 
Don’t think that all there is to a nice lawn is fine-grading 
the site, planting the grass, watering it and mowing it. 
Maintaining a good lawn requires care and money— 
lots of both—and if you haven’t the time and don’t want 
to spend the money, the best advice you can take is to 
just cut the natural grass (and weeds) you can’t keep 
from coming up, anyway. 
On the other hand, if you are after a deep velvety 
turf follow these directions. 
New Lawns 
Be sure you have six inches of topsoil; topsoil rich in humus 
(old manure dug in). Don’t fool around testing it for acidity— 
put on 25 pounds of lime per 1000 square feet. (Too much 
lime will give you too much clover.) Rake in the lime, and 
water the area. Don’t be in a hurry about seeding—you want 
the freshly dug soil to settle. Then put on 50 pounds of 0-10-10 
commercial fertilizer. (This means you have no nitrogen, except 
that already in the soil, but you do have plenty of phosphorus 
and potash for root and body strength.) Rake it finely and 
water the area some more. 
After you can’t stand the look of the barren ground any 
longer rake it lightly. Then seed. Put the seed on so thickly 
that the formerly barren ground looks as if it had been heavily 
salt-and-peppered—like a lamb chop. Then, and this is im- 
portant, drag it. Drag it lightly about three times, round and 
round and up and down. This will cover 80 percent of the 
seed to the proper depth—the rest will be too deep or on the 
surface but you can’t do anything about it. Then roll it. (Don’t 
worry about foot marks or indentations; they can be filled in 
later.) And keep it damp. Cut it when grass.is about 3 inches 
high and set your mower as high as it will go. (The seed to 
use? If you don’t buy ours, buy what is sold as “Shady Lawn” 
seed. These mixtures contain better grasses than run-of-mill or 
so-called sunny-location grass mixtures.) 
At this point all you have is a very young lawn. It should 
be cut three times a week and your mower should never be 
set lower than 194-2 inches—the latter is better. Do not pick 
up the cut grass. You'll get some crab grass the first July but 
don’t worry about it. After the fall rains start, sprinkle the 
grass with about 5 pounds of seed per 1000 square feet. Then 
take a bamboo lawn broom and rake the whole area hard. 
Roll, and if the rains fail, keep wet. This will give you thou- 
sands of vigorous, small seedling grasses. 
Early the next spring use 25 pounds of Milorganite to 
1000 square feet. (Use a “potato” fertilizer if you can’t get 
Milorganite or some other organic material.) By early we mean 
just after frost or before the grass gets green. Then use three 
pounds of seed per 1000 square feet, broom and roll as above. 
The next August follow the same procedure and ditto every 
spring and August thereafter. 
Quite a job, isn’t it? But your reward is a deep, velvety 
lawn and we thought that was what you were after. 
About Old Lawns 
An old lawn can be refurbished without digging it up. The 
trick here is to seed, broom and roll spring and August year 
after year. (Fertilize each spring and seed spring and fall.) If 
broad-leaved plants like dandelion and plantain are present 
dig them out or kill with 2-4D. 
Notes on Crabgrass 
Crabgrass is no problem on a well-kept lawn. Heavy, benign 
grasses give Crab no room to get started—an annual, it does 
not germinate until late June or July. It is shallow-rooted and 
simply cannot get started in a thick lawn. In our opinion 
Crabgrass killers (some do actually kill it) are a waste of time 
and money—they cannot substitute for properly kept grass and 
cost more than a good lawn in the long run. 
And Visit White Flower Farm 
You are always welcome to come and look around and 
there is usually someone free to talk about gardening 
problems. On Route 63, 3%2 miles south of Litchfield 
Village. 
