THE UNNEEDED ROLLER.
One discovery, important perhaps to both bowlers and lawn-tennis players, has been made and established. It is the substitution of top-dressing for a heavy roller. The one revives the grass by aeration, the other kills it by suffoca- tion. And the tap-dressing is the better leveller of the two. It is, I think, undoubted (though I speak in this illustration wholly on my own authority) that the trouble with the growth of grass at Lord's and many other cricket grounds has been due to heavy rollers as well as to starvation, though doubtless heavy rollers are necessary on occasion. Our St. Ives research station seems to agree with the Arlington station that the very worst chemical to put on a golf-green is lime. It encourages the plants that are the golfers' weeds though they may be the farmers' friends. The two most favoured manures are sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of iron. One would like to see the St. Ives station encouraged by all lawn and pitch keepers, whether their game is bowls, tennis, cricket, croquet, or even football and racing. It is a grass age—on the farm as on the links. And the world regards us as already the chief specialists. England is the source of the best grass seeds ; and really marvellous successes (notably on the Antwerp golf links) have been achieved in the reclama- tion of sandy wastes. * * * *
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