EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 385 



MICHIGAN'S SHIFTING SANDS. 



THEIR CONTROL AND BETTER UTILIZATION. 



Special Bulletin No. 79. 



BY F. HOBART SANFORD. 



Sand dunes occur quite generally on all continents. Some of the most 

 prominent are found in Australia, France, Cape Colony, the Great 

 Sahara and in Western Asia and many other places in the old world. 

 Prominent among the dune areas of the United States are those at 

 Cape Cod, along the Coast of California and Oregon, the Columbia River 

 dune region and the Great Lakes Region. 



Vast amounts of money have been spent on sand dune reclamation, 

 some to good purpose followed by entire success, and some in the form 

 of experiment. This experimental work has demonstrated satisfactorily 

 the possibility of control. It is no longer a matter of guess although 

 the same methods will not apply in all cases. Dunes which occur near 

 salt water present greater difficulties in their control than those lying 

 inland or near fresh water. The humidity of the locality as well as the 

 total annual and seasonal rainfall all contribute their effects. The 

 Great Lakes sand dunes are favored in this respect. The lake winds are 

 heavily charged with moisture, and the annual rainfall amounts to from 

 thirty-five to forty inches on the Lake Michigan shore and from twenty- 

 six to thirty inches on the Huron and Superior shores. Under such 

 moisture conditions and with the absence of the deleterious influence of 

 the salt spray of other regions successful reclamation of shifting sand 

 may be assured. 



The sand dunes in Michigan are found in four belts on the shores of 

 the three greater lakes. These belts are mentioned hereafter as the 

 Superior Belt, meaning the line of dunes found on the Superior shore 

 of the Upper Peninsula; the South Shore Belt, meaning the belt along 

 the south coast of the Upper Peninsula; the West Shore Belt as that 

 formed by the winds and waters of Lake Michigan upon the Avest coast 

 of the Lower Peninsula; and the fourth, the East Shore Belt as that 

 washed by the waters of Lake Huron, 



Geologically the sand dunes are young. They had their origin after 

 the disappearance of the Toledo Wisconsin Ice Sheet or when Lake 

 Michigan attained its present shore lines and they have been formed 

 since by wind and water. That timber has been logged and new forests 

 are again produced proves that the forests have conquered the dunes, 

 and, left alone by man and his agents, the dunes would again be covered 

 with natural forest growth. We cannot now expect this to occur, how- 

 ever, and with the competition for farmland becoming stronger, man has 

 attempted to use the dune areas. A time may come when agricultural 

 science will teach us how to safely use all the sands for agricultural pur- 

 poses, but until that time comes those lands should produce the crops 

 now known to be suitable to them. 

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