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CRICKET GROUNDS
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Quantity of Seed

We need scarcely allude to the necessity of sowing new and pure seed, strong in germinating power. Seeds of the grasses and clovers suitable for producing a fine turf are nearly all expensive, some of them very expensive. But as fine grasses do not tiller out to the same extent as the larger pasture varieties, a liberal seeding is imperative. We recommend a sowing of four bushels per acre, and should the ground be wanted in the shortest possible time, the quantity may with advantage be increased to five or six bushels per acre. The additional outlay will be well repaid by the rapid clothing of the ground; and in favour of thick seeding it may be urged that the more closely the plants are crowded the finer will be the herbage.


Sowing

Grass seeds may be sown at any time between the middle of March and the end of September. But from the latter half of May on to about the second week in August, hot, dry weather often proves destructive to the young plants. They cannot acquire sufficient stamina to endure continued drought or fierce heat, unless constant watering is possible, and it is not conducive to sweetness of temper to see a good plant wither away. From the middle of March to the first week of May is the best period for spring sowing, the earlier the better; and from about loth August to the middle of September for