Omaha daily bee., 1914-06-28
ON THE MAKING OF A LAWN
A job Tackled JOyOusIy BrOugh Z
Grief and n BuRhOOse
Hunch.


'In the sylvan solitudes," said the wild
man of the woods, the grass grows freely
and spontaneously, because nature In
tended that grass should grow in the
woods.
People who want grass on their prem
ises should move to the forest Businesses.
There's no use trying TO grow grass in
town. 1t can't be done in an ordinary
lifetime. It is an old saying in England
that It takes 300 years to make good
lawn. and you can't expect a man TO live
600 years for such purpose.
MY wife and ! were we'll suited TO
each other in most respects. When We
were first married we lived at q boarding
house, and then we were two souls with
but single thought. Before long Amelia.
began insisting upon renting a cottage in
the suburbs. l knew in my inmcst heart
that the boarding house life is best but
when a man is newly married he will
make any sort of sacrifice for his bride.
SO, against my better Judgment, we
bought a cottage on the installment plan
and settled down to live happy ever after.
When we got the place the front yard
was full of good outstanding weeds which
would have delighted the eye of an artist
or nature lover but my wife, who had
old fashioned ideas, insisted that weeds
were a disgrace and she said we'd have
to have a blue grass lawn. So 1 spent
all my spare time for three weeks spad-
ing and rakihg the front yard and during
that time I never had chance TO read
the newspapers or go TO the corner drug
store to get the returns from the base
ball games. When a man once goes into
the lawn business he never has min
ute he can call his own.
Finally ] sowed the blue grass seed
and supposed that the worst was over
and I'd have little leisure. But my wife
said the grass wouldn't grow unless the
ground was kept saturated with water,
so had to unwind about thousand feet
of garden hose and attach II to a hydrant
and sprinkle water every evening, and
then wind the hose ell up again and put
1t away In the woodshed, and by the time
that was done it was time to go to bed
Il think the grass seed we used was a
by-product OF one OF the wooden nutmeg
factories, or maybe the grocer gave us a
prediGested breakfast food by mistake
Anyhow, after all my labors, not a spear
OF grass came up. But there was a beau
tiful crop OF bull-thistles and dandelions
and these all had to be pulled up by hand
and the ground worked over again; to pre-
pare 1t for another sowing of grass seed
l tell you, my son, / worked in that front
yard until / was sick OF the sight and
smell of it. But my wife egged me on
in the malevolent way OF married women,
and sowed some more seed and raked
II In, and then went over the ground with
big iron roller that resembled the car OF
Juggernaut Then the sickening work
CT sprinkling had to be taken up again
and finally there was showing of grass
on the ground.
1T was poor stand, like Chinamans
whiskers. and / wanted TO plow up the
ground and plant potatoes in it, but my
wife insisted that II the grass had a
chance 1t would increase and multiply,
and finally form good sod. All that
was necessary, she said, was to keep down
the weeds, and for three years l dug
dandelions and pepper grass and burdock
out OF that tedious lawn, and It looked
worse then at the beginning. I saw that
| would have TO spend the best years of
my life wrestling with the lawn, and
! might have, endured In silence, for a
man who has been married that long
usually will stand without hitching But
enc fine spring evening my wife an
rounced that we might as well seed down
the back yard, as well as the front yard,
to blue grass, and the shock was more
than / could stand. In my delirium I
lied to the forest primeval and have been
here ever since. walt Mason. in Chicago
News.