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Your local state or county extension offices are paid by the public to help in give you all kinds of information on how to take these samples and for a small charge they give you a detailed and most times written recommendations on the amounts needed to be added and suggested fertilization rates for houseplants to lawns to pastures and everything in between. 

This test will provide you with information such as the pH of your lawns soil and the amount of various nutrients needed or in abundance in the soil. The laboratory can even  recommend solutions if you provide the crop (grass type) growing in your soil sample.

Make sure your test is from a wide range of your lawns soil, by obtaining samples from all over your lawn area.  This will provide a more complete picture of the health or deficiency of your soil -- Get a sample that is at least 6 inches in dept.  Either use a core sampler (often loaned out by your extension agent) or take a hand trowel to dig a sample of soil from all depths.

All soils are composed of a mixture of Clay, silt and sand...  Your exact soil composition will most likely be described as a mixture of two or more of these components.  Soil is a mixture of air, water and soil particles.   For best growth of your grass this mixture must be the right balance.  The texture of your soil is the mix of the three basic soil components:

• Sand: Soils with particle sizes ranging from 2.0 to .05 mm.
• Silt: Soils with particle sizes ranging from .05 to .002 mm.
• Clay: Soils with particles sizes smaller than .002 mm.

Loam:  Loam is the ideal soil mixture, consisting of 40% Sand, 40% Silt and 20% Clay.  A loam soil will seem crumbly, in comparison to a clay soil that is very tight.  The best soils for grasses are loamy soils with a 40-60% sand component, a 20-30% clay and a 20-30% silt component. 

Organic Matter: Organic matter is plant and animal residues, soil organisims (microscopic), and living plant roots.  Organic soil also includes humus matter which is highly decomposed organic material.  Good lawn soils should have at lest 2% of organic soils.  Organic soil matter helps your plants by supplying usable nutrients and nitrates for growth.  Organic matter also helps in establishing a soil with various crumb sizes (composed of 3 types of soil) of 1 to 3 mm.  This is the best soil structure in which air, nutrients and water can grow healthy grasses.

For lawn purposes your concern should be with how the soil makeup affects water holding and air availability in the soil, more than fertility.  You may need to improve sandy soils by adding organic matter (heavy soils) and clays or clay-loams.  For a clay soil, you should add organic matter (light soils) and a sandy loam or sand.  The organic matter may be materials such as peat, manure, old sawdust, straw, seed hulls and other materials.  You should thoroughly mix the organic matter with your soil to a depth of 5-6 inches.  Add extra nitrogen if high quantities of organic matter are added so as to replace nitrogen tied up in decomposing materials in your soil.  Fertility can be improved through the addition of fertilizers and lime (sulfur if alkaline)

The pH range is 1.0-14.0and 7.0 is the mid-point, meaning ˝ acidity to ˝ alkalinity. Each plant has a level it will tolerate, past that level the will look sickly and generally not grow at all in some situations. The basic pH test only gives the acidity/alkalinity level and is one of the easiest ways to improve the soil.

Liming raises the pH and sulfur lowers the pH.