lbarrow full of
clay, and put it into a water-cart, or any receptacle for holding water.
Having mixed your clay with water, keep pouring the mixture on to your
pitch, taking care that the stones and gravel which sink to the bottom
do not fall out. When you have emptied your water-cart, get some more
clay and water, and continue pouring it on to the ground until you have
covered a patch about twenty-two yards long and three yards wide, always
remembering not to empty out the sediment at the bottom of the
water-cart, for this will spoil all. Then, setting to work with your
roller, roll the clay and water into the ground. Never mind if it picks
up on to the roller: a little more water will soon put that to rights.
After an hour's rolling you will have a level and true cricket pitch,
requiring but two or three days' sun to make it hard and true as
asphalt. You may think you have killed the grass; but if you water your
pitch in the absence of rain the day after you have played on it, the
grass will not die. It is chiefly in Australia that cricket grounds are
treated in this way; they are dressed with mud off the harbours, and
rolled simultaneously. Such grounds are wonderfully true and durable.

If the pitch is naturally a clay one, it might be sufficient to use
water only, and roll at the same time; but for renovating a worn clay
pitch, a little strong loamy soil, washed in with water and rolled down
will fill up all the "chinks" and holes. It will make an old pitch as
good as new.

The reason that nine out of ten village grounds are bad and bumpy is
that they are not rolled soon enough after rain or after being watered.
Roll and water them simultaneously, and they will be much improved.

Another excellent plan is to soak the ground with clay and water, and
leave it alone for a week or ten days before rolling. Permanent benefit
will be done to the soil by this method. For golf greens and lawn-tennis
courts situated on light soil, loam is an indispensable dressing. Any
loamy substance will vastly improve the texture of a light soil and the
quality of the herbage. Yet it is most difficult to convince people of
this fact. We have known cases in which hundreds of pounds have been
expended on cricket grounds and golf greens when an application of clay
top-dressing would have put the whole thing to rights at the cost of a
few shillings. One committee had artificial wells made on every "putting
green" of their golf course, in or