When no important alteration of the ground is necessary, deep cultivation should be avoided. Spudding to the depth of 6 to 9 inches will suffice, and this affords the opportunity of incorporating such manure as may be required. It frequently happens, however, that the surface does not present the desired conformation, and that a level plot can only be obtained by the removal or addition of a considerable mass of earth. Possibly the level may have to be raised by soil brought from a distance. In such a case it is usual to shoot the loads where needed as they arrive, tread the earth firmly down, and make the surface even as the work proceeds. This is the proper method if the whole bulk of soil come from one source, is uniform in quality, and suitable for the seed-bed. But in the event of there being much difference in the mould, it will be necessary to spread a layer of each kind over the entire plot, putting the retentive soil at the bottom, and reserving the finer and more friable portion for the top. To make up one part of the ground entirely with loamy clay, and another part with light loam, will inevitably result in a patchy appearance, because each soil fosters those grasses which possess affinities for it. In order to ensure a perfectly level surface, pegs must be driven into the soil at the extreme points, and intermediate pegs at regular distances between. On these a long piece of wood having a straight edge can be adjusted by a spirit-level, and by shifting the wooden straight-edge from peg to peg, the level of the whole area can be efficiently tested. WEED SEEDS IN SOILS A serious danger to which strange soil is liable is the presence of seeds of troublesome weeds. We have seen a lawn which had been made level with sifted soil taken from a neighbouring field. Upon every spot thus treated a strong colony of _Holcus lanatus_ had grown, and as the pale green patches defied all efforts to extirpate them, the extreme course of cutting out and replacing with good turf had to be adopted. The only certain way of ridding soil of weed seeds is to burn it. This operation is well understood by agriculturists, and we should like to insist upon it as not only essential when adding strange soil upon which a cricket ground is to be made, but highly desirable whenever the land is a stiff clay, in which case burning is often worth undertaking, for the beneficial effect it has on the growth of grass. The disintegration of the clay, which is one of the good effects of burning, may to some extent be obtained by simply digging up the ground in autumn and leaving it rough for the frost to break down and sweeten.