Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1891-07-04
HE CULTlYAl'ES GRASS
Mr. OLCOTT'S HOBBY IS THr sc,-.
TlFlc CULTURE OF son.

< I'm Keeping Grasses Separate.
Three miles from the pretty CoDnac,;o..
town of South Manchester is the farm
james B Olcott, who is becoming t7r,.,
for his ideas about grass &c seems So.
that while poets have sung and pr,ii,-s
people btve admired grass for 81 D,,,
centuries there yet have been SO few An
mite ideas about it. It might allpos, y.
said that grass culture was unknown H..
til James Il. Oicott began to have 1racti.-,
ideas about it and to put these brsefi.,'
ideas into demonstration.
horry one has observed lawns and na-t.
has noticed the beauty OF color the striti,l
effects Of carefully moved and wea5a3
plots of grass has enjoyed the softpess All
GOODNESS of such well kept plots And n.
no one who has not seen Mr.. Olcott's ora.
garden can realize how imperfect bo,
crude, how poor the best lawns are in. ron.
parison with what they might be- Itistbs
might be that is Mr. Olcott's purpose.
The other day reporter visited Mr. OF
colt and walked for many hours throprb
his grass garden and listened to what bs
had to say for his grasses and his idea
Mr. Olcot began at the beginning and
l1iit ap his theory systematically. "a
good many people" said he "do not realize
to begin with, that turf, or sod, is not a nat.
ural product. Ycn do not find il iu nature
Take our own prairies, for instance. When
the great herds OF buffalo r0umed over
them the was no turf The grass grew
wild and thin here, thick there The but
falo moved north in summer and south in
winter Just as soon as men c"ne and put
barf1L nj a. on tlis ali.
1t had no foundation.
CATTLE MAKE TUl"
Turf is the product Of b. of cattle
sheep aud horses. Ittakes CO.'S. .ut gnaw.
ing in the same place and constant tram
pling to beat the roots together into O turi
Wherever there have been herds and past
ures, there turf has formed
"And now, strange though 10 may seem
while this turf has been cultivated ia many
ways and has been used iu all sorts Of orna
mentation, there has been no real science
applied TO it. We have had flower garden
ing and landscape gardening but no grass
gardening to speak of, important part Of
landscape gardening though it's.
Take any lawn nr grseuswaw, anywhere
] care not how carefully il may have been
laid out, and examine it closely You viii
find iu every square foot a dOleu different
kinds of grass represented, with weeds Of
all sorts thrown in. And you will hud
TIA, the turf is not thick and homogeneous,
but is really thin and made up Of all sorts
of odds and ends. You would think that
any gardener would see that this was all
wrong aud ought to be remedied
"Fos these different kinds Of grasses are
Of different suudes Of green and even Of
different colors. Some of them will minge
into a dense sod, others will not, and thus
interfere with the homogeneousness Of the
whole. The weeds have no business there
at all Then, too, some of these grasses
will stand frequent moving, while Others
require more careful handling
IGNORANCE AMONG FARMERS.
"Thcn take this up from the farmers
standpoint In his meadow or pasture he
will have all these grasses growing TO-
gether promiscuousiy Some grow close
dense, and yield many tons to the ace
Others are thin and poor and yield little
Yet among the farmes the greatest igno
rance prevails, both as to the heaviness Of
grass and she uutritive qualities Of the
different kinds
"How much labor is wasted, how much
more is misdirected or yields only small
return. have even known farmers %
grow acres of worthless weed, cut in and
harvest it under the impression that they
were growing good grass and were getting
an extraordinary yield Nothing worthy
the name of science has u,ens applied 70
meadows or pasture.
"These things show in outline the need
Of grass gardening. 1t is to this need that
h0tr, t4Yf f.p
and within the last two years | think
have done something toward accomplish
Ing my purpose
To the south of Mr. Olcott's house lie-
the acre of ground which makes up BIZ
grass garden, IN all probability the finest
grass garden in the world. Ia FIVE parallel
rows extending the entire length of th.
field, are plots of grass, each plot four tees
square. There are $50 plots IN all, repre-
senting over a hundred different kinds OF
grass Each plot is separated from It's neigh
bors by "a narrow path of bare ground. Thus
each grows and thrives by itself without
any intermingling.
MIR. OLCOTT's GARDEN.
In each Of these plots there is to be found
one kind of grass, and one only. There j.
not merely distinction of family, but oil
species rs well, so that, no matter how care
fully you may examine any one plot, you
will find that it is uniform throughout
This result was obtained by extraordinary
precautions. II you buy grass seed Of
dealer you will find when it grows that IN
der the name on The outside Of the package
a half dozen or a dozen different kinds oi
grass are included So Mr. Olcott could
not buy OF dealers
For the most part these plots were grown
from shred Of turf Some Of them CANT
from distant parts Of this country; other
from other parts of the world Mr. Oioot'
would take bit of sod tear it up into
small pieces, only a few roots to piece
and then plant those that were absolutely
alike in the same plot. In this way there
was no mixing of families or Of species
For this planting Mr. OlcOtt has wooden
frame four feet square, with two paTalle
Stats across il at equal distances from tn'
sides aud each from the other.
IN these stats aud i'm the sides Of the frame
are driven nails, equal distances apaTt
twenty five points in all When this frame
IS pressed down upon a plot twenty n
small holes are made in the ground anu l-
eacl hole seed or shred Of turf Is p-.
From these twenty five centers Of grow