G r e e n k e e p e r s Club of N e w E n g l a n d

NEWSLETTER
May, 1929.

Voi. 1, No. 1.
Editor

Guy C. West
Associate Editors

Frank H. Wilson, Jr.

James McCormack

is well for a man to respect his own vocation whatever it is, and
to think himself bound to uphold it, and to claim for it the respect it deserves."
Charles

Dickens.

This newsletter comes to you with one purpose, to serve you.
It aims to help you, to give you the viewpoints of various men in this
field of greenkeeping. All of the articles in this issue have been
written by members of the Board of Directors of your club, men
who are earnestly trying to make this club a vital force, serving
its members well. Do you appreciate all that your Directors are
doing for your club?
This then is your newsletter. It is on trial. Help it to help
others. Your suggestions and articles for it are desired.
The May meeting held at the Charles River Country Club,
Newton Centre, Mass. gave all who attended a fine opportunity
to inspect the new demonstration plots which were planted last
Fall in conjunction with the Green Section. Experiments are being
carried on with various kinds of bent, fertilizer experiments, arsenate
of lead, and height of cut. These plots are for you, and you should
plan to inspect them often. The experiments are there under New
England conditions for you to see at any time, and Frank Wilson
will be glad to tell you about them when you drop around!
Plan to take in the June meeting, at Bear Hill Country Club,
Wakefield, Mass. Let's get together!

NEWSLETTER
THE MAINTENANCE OF STOLON
GREENS
Whether a p u t t i n g green has been
developed f r o m seed or stolons, the
quality of the turf depends on drainage,
location, and the quality of the soil.
It is a well known f a c t t h a t all greens
on a golf course do not produce the
same results with the same t r e a t m e n t s .
Experience teaches us t h a t each green
is a problem in itself, but the following
plan of maintenance has been generally followed on the stolon greens a t
the Unicorn Country Club.
Nine of our greens were planted
with stolons in the Fall of 1923 and
were opened f o r play in J u n e 1921. The
second nine were planted in the summer
of 1924 and opened f o r play the following spring.
As soon as the f r o s t is out of the
ground and the greens are dry enough,
we roll them with an ordinary p u t t i n g
green roller. Our first top dressing is
p u t on as soon as the grass begins to
make new growth. This top dressing
consists of one cubic yard of compost
to which is added 25 pounds of ammonium sulphate and 50 pounds of 6-8-2
fertilizer f o r each 5000 square f e e t of
green. This is followed up by a similar
top dressing t h r e e weeks later, omitting
the 6-8-2 fertilizer.
During the playing season, we top
dress on the average of once in five
weeks. This, however, is determined by
weather conditions. With the last top
dressing in the Fall, 100 pounds of bone
meal is applied to each green.
As a preventitive against brown
patch, we have used several fungicides
over a period of five years. During the
last two years we have had very good
results by t r e a t i n g with bichloride of
mercury in April and May, three ounces
to each thousand square f e e t of green,
and by using a chlorophenol mercury
preparation during the brown patch
season.
The results obtained were especially
encouraging during the season of 1928
which was considered to be one of the
worst this district has experienced. For
the last two seasons, we have watered
our greens early in the morning. This
we believe has also helped to eliminate
brown patch troubles. A t r e a t m e n t of
bichloride of mercury solution in the
Fall has also seemed to check snowmold.

The first three seasons, we did not
cut our greens as short as the r e g u l a r
putting green, as we believe it gave
them a better chance to make a good
foundation. Since then we have lowered
our mowers and the last two seasons
have been cutting them to the desired
putting green closeness. We cut our
greens daily and at times during the
height of t h e growing season, find it
necessax'y to cut them twice a day.
Very little weeding has been necessary on these greens as the thickness
of the turf prevents weeds f r o m growing.
We have, however, had some
chickweed in several of our greens. By
rteating with arsenate of lead, most of
this was eliminated in one season. Our
trouble with weeds undoubtedly was
mostly due to green top dressing which
we used during the first two seasons.
We have a nursery of the same strain
of stolons as used on the putting greens.
This we feel is very necessary in order
to repair quickly any damage and also
keep the greens of uniform t e x t u r e and
color.
We believe that the care of seeded
and stolon greens is very nearly identical a f t e r the first two years. During
this time, stolon greens require more
f r e q u e n t and heavier applications of
top dressing than do seeded greens.
J A M E S McCORMACK

BRAEBURN VELVET

From my experience I believe t h a t
velvet bent grows best on peaty soil.
The eleventh and seventeenth at Braeburn, nearly solid velvet bent, have soil
which is peat mixed with sandy loam.
These two and nine or ten others were
seeded at the same time with South
German mixed bent, and they are the
only two where the velvet bent has
crowded out all of the other bents.
In caring for velvet bent greens, it
is necessary to go slowly in the Spring;
if you t r y to force them in the Spring
and get cold rainy weather the l a t t e r
part of April, they will go back.

NEWSLETTER
I get good results f r o m a dressing
of loam in the Spring, and a f t e r t h a t
about six or seven pounds of sulphate
of ammonia mixed with f o u r or five
wheelbarrows of loam every two or
three weeks until October. What I consider the best dressing of all is compost
made f r o m equal p a r t s of loam and
horse manure, piled up f o r two years
and turned over several times. A dressing of this applied in May and another
in July not only acts as a fertilizer, but
it holds the moisture around the roots
of the grass in the hot weather, and
saves a lot of watering.
I have a strong feeling t h a t more
than seventy-five per cent of t h e present day diseases on p u t t i n g greens are
caused by over fertilizing and over
watering.
JOHN SHANAHAN

soil and one-third sharp sand, and containing ten to twenty pounds of sulphate
of ammonia and fifty pounds of poultry
m a n u r e per green, the whole dressing
being well mixed first.
When planting stolons into n u r s e r y
stock I believe in broadcasting t h e
stolons as when planting a green. By
raking with an iron l-ake, and then cutting with a high wheel lawn mower
with grass catcher attached, you can
easily have your stolons all ready implanting, thereby avoiding the necessity
of pulling the matted stolons a p a r t and
chopping the long runners, thus saving
much time. I prepare the ground as I
would f o r seed, covering it as evenly as
possible with stolons, taking care not
to get them in bunches, as they would
heat when watered. I then cover with
one q u a r t e r inch of loam, and keep
ground moist until well started.
THOMAS F A H E Y

WINCHESTER BENT
CHANGING FESCUE GREENS TO
At Winchester we have f o u r different
kinds of bent. Five years ago I got
some stolons f r o m Rhode Island which
were supposed to be Rhode Island bent,
b u t I proved them to be Seaside Bent.
One year later I got some which were
supposed to be the Washington strain.
I planted f o u r greens with this strain,
and f e l t I had greens second best to
none in the country, but later this
strain gave me all kinds of trouble, being s u b j e c t to brown-patch and snowmold. In order to keep them f r o m looking like the map of the world I had to
top dress them every week!
Later on I was able to get the real
Washington
bent,
and
also
some
Metropolitan, and these two I am glad
to write about, as I am having good
results with them, and they make good
p u t t i n g greens. They do not require
the care the other strain does.
In taking care of my bent greens, I
mow them every day, using the wellknown roller type of p u t t i n g green
mower, set to cut as closely as possible.
I top dress them six or seven times during the growing season, using a dressing
consisting of two-thirds screened top

BENT
The process of changing fescue bent
greens to seeded bent greens is slow
and tedious, and f o r the first two y e a r s
it seems as if little had been accomplished. The success of the year's work
depends to a g r e a t extent on what luck
you have with the weather, as a cold
wet period may cause complete failure.
At the start the most important item
to be considered is the seed. Buy the
best seed you can obtain and have it
tested f o r purity and vitality. Buy if
possible from a seed firm that obtains
its seed f r o m the same source each
year.
The first and second years seed both
Spring and Fall, either scratching the
greens both ways with sharp-toothed
rakes, or using some kind of a cut-in
seeder. If the first method is used,
sow the seed directly onto the grass as
evenly as possible, top dress lightly with
a sandy top dressing, and r u b it into
the green thoroughly; water the green
well without flooding it. Use about one
pound of seed per thousand square f e e t

NEWSLETTER
of green surface. At the beginning of
the third year the bent will begin to
show, and if South German mixed bent
has been used, small patches of velvet
bent the size of a silver dollar will be
scattered
over the greens.
These
patches grow in size f r o m year to year,
but slowly. A f t e r the second y e a r sow
only in the Fall, p r e f e r a b l y in September, mixing the seed evenly through the
compost, or better still using a cut-in
seeder.
A nursery of bent sod helps materially
in that winter killed patches can be
sodded and chick weed plugged out
with bent.
At the end of the fifth year your
green should be nearly all bent.
FRANK H. WILSON, JR.
"LET THIS BE A WORLD OF

SOAP FOR BALL

WASHERS

The following information is given by
a m a n a g e r and owner of a large laundry. To dissolve in cold water to make
suds and to rinse also, a low teter soap
is needed, such as an olive oil soap of
low teter strength. For a builder, to
remove the dirt, and to prevent "killing
off" of the soap, " O a k i t e " is very good.
Hence a very good soap f o r use in all
ball washers consists of half an olive
oil soap of low t e t e r strength and half
Oakite, mixed thoroughly.
I have used such a mixture all this
year to date, and have found it b e t t e r
than any others I have tried. This soap
does n o t remove the paint f r o m the
balls but does clean well, and also lasts
well in the washers.
GUY C. W E S T

"FRIENDS"
HUBBARD
POULTRY MANURE AT WOODLAND
John Shanahan is spending his extra
time this year looking a f t e r landscape
work, cleaning and b e a u t i f y i n g around
Braeburn. Most of us could spend some
time along this line!
Secretary Mitchell is planning to
strip his eleventh green a t Kernwood
this year and resod with pure Kernwood
velvet bent. Read the story of Kernwood Bent in the J u n e " N e w s l e t t e r . "
Tom Galvin has demonstrated how
top dressings of sand will help dry wet
areas on several approaches this Spring.
Tom also enlarged several tees last
Fall. Rhode Island is in fine shape this
Spring!
Mike O'Grady is working hard a t
New Bedford carting away tons of rocks
f r o m the site of his new ninth fairway.
E r n e s t Lord has started a fine n u r sery of South German mixed bent a t
Cohasse, thirty by a hundred feet. Have
you a good n u r s e r y ?
John Latvis expects to be busy this
Summer building two new greens.
How about visiting your fellow member who is located near you?

Several years ago we started using
pulverized poultry dressing at Woodland and have had such success with it
that we now depend in g r e a t measure
on this one product for our greens.
We use this poultry manure mixed
with loam and sand—2 parts poultry,
4 p a r t s loam, and 2 part sand. We have
also discovered that by dressing the
greens with clear poultry dressing,
using a fertilizer spreader and then
brushing it in or matting it, t h a t we
can dress the eighteen greens in less
than a day. We have used as high as
100 pounds per green. However, the
greens should be well watered a f t e r the
dressing should either method be used.
We have taken advantage of many
rainy days to put this material on clear,
and it makes the ideal way.
It
with
with
little
how

is well in using poultry m a n u r e , as
many other things, to mix or use
it a little "gray m a t t e r , " as a
headwork in knowing when and
to use it helps greatly.
C. E. T R E A T