SOIL FOR TOP DRESSING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 28, 3 February 1899, Page 8

SOIL FOR TOP DRESSING.

Every season where lawns have been much used during the summer a certain amount of top-dressing- is required so as to get them into good order for next season. To be able to top-dress to advantage the soil required for the purpose should be procured now. At the present time the soil is in a dry state, and can be handled with ease. The soil should be lifted and conveyed to a place handy to the lawn to be top-dressed, and placed in a heap, where it will sweeten and get pulverised before it is required for use. While making up the heap dust a few bushels of salt and lime through it. After the heap is completed a good soaking- of water will be of assistance in helping it to ferment and sweeten. If watered now it will have plenty of time to get quite dry before it is required for use. In getting good soil for top-dressing, see that nothing but the best is obtained, and the best is the top spit of soil only. It is no use taking the subsoil, as there is nothing in it with which to sustain a stronggrowth of grass. All that it can be used for is for filling up holes in the ground, there being no nutriment in it. The best soil of all is that which has been taken from agrass paddock which has for some years been used for grazing cattle. Such possesses all the elements for making a

good lawn.