Making a Tennis Court

MAKING A TENNIS COURT
THE HOUSE & GARDEN MAKING BOOKS
It is the intention of the publishers to make this series of little volumes, of which Making a Tennis Court is one, a complete library of authoritative and well illustrated handbooks dealing with the activities of the home-maker and amateur gardener. Text, pictures and diagrams will, in each respective book, aim to make perfectly clear the possibility of having, and the means of having, some of the more important features of a modern country or suburban home. Among the titles already issued or planned for early publication are the following: Making a Rose Garden ; Making a Lawn ; Making a Garden to Bloom This Year ; Making a Fireplace ; Making Paths and Driveways ; Making a Poultry House ; Making a Garden with Hotbed and Coldframe ; Making Built-in Bookcases, Shelves and Seats ; Making a Rock Garden ; Making a Water Garden ; Making a Perennial Border ; Making the Grounds Attractive with Shrubbery ; Making a Naturalized Bulb Garden ; with others to be announced later.
There is a great advantage, along the line of appearances, to be had by making the court an integral part of the whole landscape scheme
By GEORGE E. WALSH
NEW YORK McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY 1912
Copyright, 1912, by McBRIDE, NAST & CO.
Published March, 1912
Although the game of lawn tennis as played to-day dates back only some forty to forty-five years, it is in reality one of the oldest of all existing ball games. The origin of the game is involved in considerable obscurity, but it has numberless historical associations which make it of peculiar interest.
Tennis was mentioned in the Arthurian romances, and it was quite extensively played in Europe in the Middle Ages. It was played upon open courts in the parks or ditches of the feudal castles of France and Italy. It was called, in Italy, giuoco della palla ; in Germany, Ballspiel ; in France, jeu de paume ; and in Spain, jugar al able .
The French borrowed it from the Italians, and the modern word tennis was derived from the French exclamation of Tenez! that was employed in serving the ball. It was a game of kings and nobles. Originally a cork ball was used, and this was struck with the palm of the hand. A bank of earth was used instead of a net. The first appearance of the racket is uncertain, but in the time of Henry VII the hand sometimes met the racket on the royal courts of Windsor.