MAKING A LAWN

Most home-makers labor under the impression that it would be useless for them to undertake the making of a lawn, thinking it requires the knowledge and experience of the professional gardener to make such an undertaking successful. This is where they make a mistake. Anybody can make a lawn that will afford a great deal of pleasure if he sets about it, provided he is willing to do some hard work.

The first thing to do is to make the surface of the ground level. This can be done by the use of spade and hoe. Take off the tops of the hillocks, if there happens to be any, and fill the hollows with the soil thus obtained.

When you have a fairly even surface, go over it with an iron-toothed rake and make it fine and mellow. It is very important that all stones and rubbish of every kind should be removed if you want a good sward.

After reducing the soil to the necessary degree of fineness, add whatever fertilizer to it you propose to make use of, and then go over the ground again with the rake and work this fertilizer in thoroughly. It is necessary to have it evenly distributed. If it is not, there will be patches where the grass will be thick and luxuriant, and others where it will be scanty and poor. Such a result should be guarded against by working the fertilizer into the soil so evenly that no part of it will be without its proper share.

Then you are ready for sowing the seed.

The seed to sow is the very best kind in the market. This will cost you a little more than the inferior kind that is offered each season, but it is worth a good deal more, and it is what you must have if you would make your lawn a thing of beauty. Procure it from some reliable dealer who makes a specialty of "lawn-grass mixtures."

If you tell the dealer the size of your lawn and ask how much seed you will need, he will give you what he considers a fair estimate. I would advise you to double the amount, for this reason: a thickly seeded lawn will have the appearance, by the middle of the first season, of a lawn a year or two old. And because of the thickness of the grass it will be better able to stand the effect of drought and heat. You will find that the extra money invested in seed was a wise investment, and you will never have cause to regret making it.

Sowing seems, to the amateur gardener, a matter of so little importance that it requires no special attention. All there is to do is to scatter the seed over the ground. But nine out of ten amateurs who do the work with this idea in mind will speedily discover their mistake. When the grass comes up thickly here and there, with vacant places between, they will come to the conclusion that sowing grass seed evenly isn't the easiest thing in the world, for the seed is so light that the slightest puff of air will blow it away, and some will settle where you want it to, and some will lodge where other seed has already lodged, and the result will be very unsatisfactory. In order to prevent such a condition of things as far as possible, I would advise sowing from north to south, and then from east to west. Do this on a still, damp day, if possible, and hold your hand close to the ground as you scatter the seed. Don't attempt to broadcast it, as you may have seen some gardener do, but be content to scatter it over a small portion of soil each time you sow a handful of it. By doing this you will prevent most of it from being blown away.