The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1913-03-12
Rubbish and the Like Should
Be Dug Out of Them
for a Foot Depth.

= f.s7I
dences Of the cities and suburbs are
looking at their lawns with view
Of repairing them for the winter and
summer months, it is well to examine
the soil to depth of from twelve
to twenty-four inches to see If there
are any bricks, tin cans, boards, and
other coarse building debris. The
Bureau of Soils. United States De-
partment of Agriculture, says in a
farmers bulletin that the reason that
grass does not thrive well on the
average city lawn Is that the majority
OF them have filler OF this kind of
rubbish and Of course grass will not
grow on such infertile material.
"A lawn is the accompaniment of
every effort on the part of man to
beautify the surroundings of his
abiding place" says the bulletin.
THE great increase of interest in
Suburban and rural life has caused a
increase of interest in
matters pertaining to the making and
maiptenance OF lawns. Suburban
railways, the extension of electric
lines into the country, and the return
|of man to natural ways of living are
all factors contributing to the grow
ing interest in matters pertaining to
lawn making"
In general lawn should be beau
tiful and it should be useful. Its
beauty depends upon the contour of
the land, the. color and texture of the
grass and the uniformity of the turf.
The use of the lawn is to provide a
suitable setting for architectural
adornment and landscape planting.
Every device should be employed
when working with small acreas of
ground to give the lawn as great ex-
tent as possible. The buildings should
be we'll back, the foundation not too
high and the grading of the ground
should be slightly conyex-that is. a
gently convex, rolling surface from
the base of the foundation to the
street line, rather than concaye."
Bricks, fiat tins, boards, and other
coarse building debris found in near
ly all small lawns in the city are
very detrimental to 1the proper move
ment of soil fluid The downward
movement of water, is not seriously
ippeded by sucii, materiaisd and is
probably facilitated. The moisture
moves downward until it encounters
a brick, for instance, at distance of
three or four inches below the soil
lever. The water meets with no
difficulty in getting to the edge of
the brick and then goes nearly
straight downward, thus leaving the
soil Immediately below the brick I'M
supplied from this-Aew water influx.
Now, when the opposite movement
of soil fluid begins the water moves
upward until it encounters the brick,
and the soil Immediately above the
brick, which has in the meantime
dried out, remains unsupplied with
moisture, so that the grass suffers and
dries out during a critical dry spell.
Bad spots in small city lawns are
more often than not found to be due
to some such impediment to the
movement of capillary water
"A lawn soil should have good
supply of moisture at all times. 1t
should be able to take care of excess
during the wet season by drainage
and during the dry season be able to
supply stored up moisture from its
depths. This adequate water supply
is the principal factor in grass growth
and the one most difficult to control
in poor soil. 1t is more important
than any added fertilizer and can not
be compensated for by the addition
of any amount of kind OF chemical
plant food. All suggestions regard
Ing, lawn soils, their texture, selec-
ton and manipulation have been
made with one end in view-the
creating and maintaining of an ade-
quate water supply in as natural a
manner as possible If this water
supply is maintained effectually by a
normal soil, the natural processes
which go hand in hand with it, such
as proper bacterial activity, aeraton
and oxidation, soil sanitation, and the
supply of plant food generally, are
/ also sufficient for a healthy growth
of good greensward"
A soil well adapted to lawns
should consist of clay, silt, very fine
sand, medium sand, coarse sand and
fine gravel. 1t is this difference in
the size of soil particles and in the
proportions in which they are present
in soils that has given rise to the d.
erent classes of agricultural soils,
such as the clays, clay loans. sands,
and sandy loans This difference de-