LAW-MERCHANT (ante), a system of law consisting largely of the usages of trade, and applied by courts to the contracts and dealings of persons engaged in mercantile busi ness of any kind. Blackstone classifies it as one of the "customs" of England, and so a part of the common law; but it is not properly a custom, as it is not restricted to a single community, and is not a part of the municipal law of a single country, but regu lates commercial contracts in all civilized countries. The body of mercantile usages which compose this branch of law, having no dependence upon locality, does not need to be established by witnesses, but judges are bound to take official notice of it. The principal branches of the law-merchant are the law of shipping, the law of marine insurance, the law of sales, and the law of bills and notes. The feudal law, which grew up in a time when property consisted chiefly of land upon whose alienation great restraints were laid, was found inadequate for the needs of the mercantile classes who were coming into prominence. The courts, when commercial contracts were brought before them, adopted from merchants the rules which regulated their business dealings and made them rules of law. Many of these rules were iu direct contradiction to the common law. Magua Charta contained a special provision guaranteeing to merchants, among other things, the right " to buy and sell according to their ancient customs," and many later statutes were enacted for their special protection. As the custom of merchants began to encroach upon the common law, there was a determined effort on the part of lawyers to resist it. It was attempted to make the custom of merchants a particular custom, peculiar to a single community, and not a part of the law of the land. It was finally decided, in the reign of James I., to be part of the law of the realm. Au attempt was then made to restrict the application of the law-merchant to persons who were actually merchants, but the courts, after considerable variance, held that it applied to the same contracts between parties not merchants.
LA.W.IsT, from the old English lawnd, signifying an open space between woods. The word is now used to designate gross kept closely cut or fed so as to form a plush-like carpet, and generally applied to the well-kept grass which forms the ground surface for decorative gardening. F.J. Scott, in his work on home Grounds, defines a lawn as " a close-fitting green robe thrown over smoothed surfaces of the earth, through which every undulation is revealed, and over which the sunlight will rest as upon velvet, and shadows of objects be clearly outlined as upon a floor." American writers Xormerly supposed the perfection of English lawns unattainable in the United States. This is a mistake. No finer lawns can be found than in the suburban homes and parks of our cities. It was principally lack of attention to them, and not fault of climate, that formerly made the comparison unfavorable to the United States. Yet the longer droughts to which this country is subject give the British islands a short advantage in summer, anti their milder winters leave their lawns greener and less covered by snows. The great heat of our summers, however, which writers have alluded to as hurtful to grass, is hurtful only when moisture fails. We have never seen more velvety turf in England than in this country on a sandy loam in times of intense and prolonged heat and drought, but where daily water by hose at night supplied the required moisture. The three essentials for a velvety lawn arc: First, a rich soil in which neither clay nor gravel and sand are largely predominant. A pure rich clay dries and bakes too quickly, and an excess of moisture upon it prepares it to dry and crack the more quickly after wards. An open gravelly soil dries quickly. and does not give sufficient food for the
grass roots at the surface. Compact sandy soils. which contain clay, but not enough to make them sticky after it rain, are best of all. An abundance of vegetable and animal manure in any of these soils is as essential to the permanent beauty of a lawn as to the growth of a corn crop. The second requirement to perfect a lawn is, incessant grazing or cutting The admirable lawn-cutters now in universal use have taken the place of the manual labor that made England's lawns so beautiful, and served to prove that labor, and not climate, was what our lawns lacked. Lawns should be cut in May and June about once a week, with longer intermission in the drvest and hottest part of the sum mer. A few years since it was supposed that the short tips of grass which the lawn cutters remove could be left to drop into it. to enrich the surface by its decay, as it at (MCC falls out of sight and is covered by the fresh growth. But experience has shown that frequent cutting soon leaves such a thick film of these decaying leaves at the roots, that it molds, smothers the grass, and finally kills it. Dead patches are frequently seen in lawns once beautiful that are caused by slow deposits of this kind. In the fall, just before a top-dressing of manure, or in the spring, a lawn should be raked clean to the roots with an iron garden rake to get this film of dead grass-leaves all out. It is a very different kind of raking from that required to remove the surface grass, and requires muscle and close attention. The third requirement is constant moisture. Where city water-works can be used, or higher springs which supply a force that make lawn fountains and hose sprinklings practicable, there need be no failure in lawns, if the foregoing conditions are found. Parks must of course have generous provisions for artificial watch ngs.
The sorts of grasses to be used where an extensive surface is to be seeded depend much upon the soil and latitude. It is safe to say that the best pasture grasses of the neighborhood am always the best lawn grasses. Small lawns should 1.)e sodded from these pastures, or at least have the walks bordered by sod. But the pastures are made up of many species of wrass; one forming the bulk of the feed in the spring, another in the summer, and another in the fall. The Kentucky blue grass, however, is the main stay, though in the heat of summer a shorter variety of the same species, and white and yellow clovers make a considerable part of the feed. After Sept. rains, white clover covers the same ground and is the main grass of autumn pastures. The seeds of many of the low-growing and creeping grasses cannot be gotten at seed stores. so that time choice is confined to blue grass, white clover, and red-top. The proportion of these by quart or bushel measure'may be four parts of blue-grass to one each of the others. The Rhode Island bent grass may be used iu the place of red-top.• It is a mistake to sow oats or any other crop with grass for the purpose of shading it. The young grass no more needs shade of oats than young oats the shade of corn. It will thrive better with out, and as weeds are quick to make It business of shading the young grass they should be cut as soon as they show, and continuously. Young grass is often stnothered by a rank growth of weeds that are permitted to cover the ground first. Sowing times for grass are, in autumn, Sept.; and in the spring, the moment when the ground is settled enough to surface it. Autumn top-dressings of well-rotted manure are invaluable, and should be spread late in the fall, and cleanly raked off as soon as the ground is settled in the spring.