On the Lawn

For most U. S. citizens the month of June means weddings, graduations and reacquaintance with the great outdoors. Last week, in almost every U. S. home that boasts a patch of green grass, families were thinking up ways of amusing themselves or entertaining their week end guests. For those who are too fat, too feeble or too lazy to play golf or tennis, the new-mown lawn is the No. 1 arena for summer pastimes.

There, this summer, thousands of men, women & children will for the first time try their skill at badminton, most popular lawn game of the year. Practically unknown as an al fresco pastime five years ago, the British-born game of badminton--batting a shuttlecock (or "bird") back & forth over a high net--has become a U. S. vogue as quickly and ubiquitously as women's open-toed shoes.

Today one may buy a domestic set (two racquets, a bird and a net) for as little as $1.45; or one may pay $45 for an elegant imported British set (with Spanish-cork, French-kid-covered, Czecho-Slovakian-goose-quilled birds) like those used by Bette Davis, Pat O'Brien, Douglas Fairbanks and other Hollywood enthusiasts. Although serious badminton addicts play indoors where there is no breeze to affect the true flight of their birds, many a tournament player, such as Mrs. George Wightman (donor of the Wightman Cup), Tennist Sidney Wood and William Faversham Jr., plays outdoors with heavier birds just for fun.

Another 1939 lawn favorite is croquet, staging a comeback along with other Victorian fashions. Among U. S. croquet players: Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Socialite Mrs. Margaret Emerson, whose Port Washington estate is the scene of the annual Long Island croquet championship, Novelists Charles and Kathleen Norris, whose summer place is virtually built around a croquet court, Poloist John Hay ("Jock") Whitney, Social Cynosure Herbert Bayard Swope, who plays very solemn croquet with Broadway celebrities at his Long Island home, Publisher William Randolph Hearst, Drama Critic Alexander Woollcott and the four Marx Brothers. Most of these play according to the Wimbledon Championship rules* and all of them take the game as seriously as Britons their cricket. One of the best croquet experts in the U. S. is Averell Harriman, board chairman of Union Pacific R. R.

For bowling-alley habitues, lawn bowls is a good summer substitute. Played with a 31-lb., lignum-vitae ball (weighted on one side to give it bias), the object of the game is to throw the ball (called "bowl") down a narrow green to land as close as possible to a previously thrown white ball (called "jack"). Although most good lawn bowlers play at clubs where velvet smooth greens have been coddled for years, many a rip-roaring bowling match has taken place on a private lawn. Scoring is similar to that of horseshoes. Sets (four pairs of bowls and two jacks) range in price from $25 to $75.

Archery is another lawn sport that is garnering devotees every year. Reason for its increasing popularity among brawny athletes who heretofore called it "sissy": the nationwide renaissance of bow-&-arrow hunting and fishing. Several States (notably Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, California, Oregon) have set aside preserves exclusively for bow-&-arrow hunters. A hunting bow is usually 5 ft. 4 in. long, has a 45 to 75-lb. pull, costs from $12 to $40. Prize Fighter Max Schmeling keeps in condition with a bow & arrow.

Other lawn games: deck tennis, lawn darts (with a cork target set on a wooden backstop), clock golf, rope quoits, paddle tennis, lawn cricket (a juvenile version of the British game), lawn hi-li (played on a court similar to badminton with wicker baskets instead of racquets and a narrow cord instead of a net), penguin skittles (a complicated version of ninepins with wooden penguins to knock down).

*England's national croquet championship is now held at Roehampton.

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