Every gardener should be the owner of a wheelbarrow, a hoe, a spade, an iron rake, a watering-pot, and a weeding-hook. The last, which will cost ten or fifteen cents, will enable you to destroy as many weeds in half an hour as you could pull in half a day by hand, and it will leave the soil in as light and porous a condition as would result from going over it with rake or hoe.
II
MAKING A LAWN
Most home-makers labor under the impression that it would be useless for them to undertake the making of a lawn, thinking it requires the knowledge and experience of the professional gardener to make such an undertaking successful. This is where they make a mistake. Anybody can make a lawn that will afford a great deal of pleasure if he sets about it, provided he is willing to do some hard work.
The first thing to do is to make the surface of the ground level. This can be done by the use of spade and hoe. Take off the tops of the hillocks, if there happens to be any, and fill the hollows with the soil thus obtained.
When you have a fairly even surface, go over it with an iron-toothed rake and make it fine and mellow. It is very important that all stones and rubbish of every kind should be removed if you want a good sward.
After reducing the soil to the necessary degree of fineness, add whatever fertilizer to it you propose to make use of, and then go over the ground again with the rake and work this fertilizer in thoroughly. It is necessary to have it evenly distributed. If it is not, there will be patches where the grass will be thick and luxuriant, and others where it will be scanty and poor. Such a result should be guarded against by working the fertilizer into the soil so evenly that no part of it will be without its proper share.
Then you are ready for sowing the seed.