314 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 23, 1866. 



SAND AND ITS MASTERS. 



Under certain conditions, the sands which underlie the 

 waters of the ocean, and have been formed either by agencies 

 no longer in operation, or by running waters and other existing 

 phenomena, heap up dunes or hillocks, and ridges along the 

 shore. This apparently simple process is thus analysed by 

 Jobard : " When a wave breaks, it deposits an almost imper- 

 ceptible line of fine sand, the next wave brings also its con- 

 tribution, and pushes the preceding line a little higher. As 

 Boon as the particles are fairly out of the reach of the water, 

 they are dried by the heat of the burning sun, and immediately 

 seized by the wind and rolled or borne farther inland. The 

 gravel is not thrown out by the waves, but rolls backward and 

 forward until it is worn down to the state of fine sand, when 

 it, in its turn, is cast upon the land and taken up by the wind." 

 This ordinary action is of course greatly intensified whenever 

 a storm arises from the sea. 



The sand, thus transferred from the centrol of the waters to 

 that of the air, is urged forward by the breezes, and rolled up 

 the gentle ascent of the shore, until plants, pebbles, or other 

 slight obstructions arrest its course, and permit the accumula- 

 tion of a heap. In this way an irregular line of somewhat 

 conical hillocks is formed, which may reach a height of even 

 5 or COO feet. By the same agency a second row of dimes is 

 built up within the first, and then a third and a fourth, until 

 these natural ramparts may form a belt of fortifications several 

 miles in width. Thus does the ocean rear mighty and effectual 

 barriers against its own incursions. 



But " Forwards ! " is as truly the motto of the sand-dune as 

 ever it was of old Marshal Blucher, and the hillocks of the 

 shore may become as formidable invaders as the sand-waves of 

 the desert. The blown dunes advance landward often at a rapid 

 pace, and if not arrested in their course, fields are rendered 

 barren, plantations buried, and the dwelling of man over- 

 whelmed. Instances of this on a scale of alarming magnitude 

 may be found on the coasts of France, Prussia, and Denmark, 

 and the total area of the sand-dunes of Western Europe has 

 been estimated at nearly a million acres. This enormous ex- 

 tent of sand-covered soil would have been far less had man 

 learned to imitate nature — a lesson which he has had to be 

 taught in the bitter school of experience. Where human agency 

 has not interfered, the sand-dune and its counterbalance, if we 

 may so speak, may often be fouud side by side. The rampart 

 heaped up by winds and waves needs but to be consolidated to 

 become a benefit instead of an injury. This is accomplished 

 by the quiet but mighty influence of vegetable life. 



A goodly number of plants hasten to make the arid ridge 

 their chosen habitat. Chief among them is the Sand Reed 

 (Ammophila arenaria), provincially known as the Marram or 

 Bent, a humble Rush, growing to a height of but a couple of 

 feet, but sending its root-fibres to a distance twenty or thirty 

 times as great beneath the ground, binding together the loose 

 and incoherent soil. It flourishes only in an atmosphere 

 charged with saline particles ; and the seemingly barren sand 

 is to it a rich and nutritive earth. Having accomplished its 

 special work, that of arresting the drifting mass, this lowly 

 plant withers and dies, and adds to the soil its quota of fertilis- 

 ing matter, preparing the ground for other races of vegetable 

 organisms, so that at length " the wilderness " may " become 

 a fruitful field," even by means of agencies apparently so in- 

 adequate. But man's interference with these natural compen- 

 sations has furnished a singular and instructive chapter in the 

 history of physical geography. The Sand Reed is found to 

 possess various economic properties. Cattle feed on its leaves, 

 and poultry upon its seeds, which have also been made into a 

 coarse kind of bread ; its fibres yield material for cordage, its 

 roots are fitted for fuel, and the entire plant is used for thatch- 

 ing. With a degree of blind improvidence scarcely credible, 

 the plants thus given to check impending injury to field and 

 dwelling, are recklessly torn up by the roots to satisfy the ne- 

 cessity or convenience of the moment. 



This practice has been continued for centuries ; and there is 

 reason for supposing that the present condition of the coasts of 

 France, Prussia, and the Netherlands, already alluded to, is 

 due to the destruction of dune-plants in past ages. 



" Before the occupation of the coast," says a writer,* to 

 whom we are indebted for several of the foregoing facts, " by 

 civilised, and therefore destructive, man, dunes, at all points 

 where they have been observed, seem to have been protected 

 in their rear by forests, which serve to break the force of the 



» H (a. G. P. Marsh. 



• Man and Nature." 1864. 



winds in both directions, and to have spontaneously clothed 

 themselves with a dense growth of the various plants, grasBes, 

 shrubs, and trees, which nature has assigned to such soils. It 

 is observed in Europe that dunes, though now without the 

 shelter of a forest country behind them, begin to protect them- 

 selves as soon as human trespassers are excluded, and grazing 

 animals denied access to them." 



Among the dunes of our own island, those of Cornwall have 

 acquired an interest in antiquarian eyes, from the disinterment 

 some thirty years since of an ancient church and oratory at 

 Perranzabulo, which the drift had hid for centuries. The 

 Scottish coast also furnishes some remarkable deposits ; inlone 

 of them lies buried what Hugh Miller graphically termed " an 

 ancient fossil barony," with remains of a manor house and its 

 humbler surroundiug cottages ; and it would appear that; the 

 catastrophe thus geologically recorded was due to the wasteful 

 ignorance of the former peasantry of the district. For an act 

 of Parliament of the time of William III. details the mischief 

 occasioned by the " bad practice of pulling the Benti and 

 Juniper," and strictly prohibits such destructive acts in future. 

 Similar legislative measures have had to be adopted in conti- 

 nental countries. In one instance, however, the fault was cer- 

 tainly not with the people. King Friedrich Wilhelm the First 

 of Prussia being sadly in want of cash, a certain Herr von Korff 

 — a devoted Bismarck of the olden time — offered to fill the royal 

 purse to overflowing if he were allowed to remove something 

 quite useless. The delighted monarch at once gave his royal con- 

 sent (as who would not to such a proposal '!) and the loyal Herr 

 proceeded to strip the sand-hills of the " Frische Nehrung " on 

 the coast, of the forests which clothed and consolidated them. 

 He sold the timber, raised the money, relieved his sovereign, 

 set free the sands to march inland, fill harbours and channels, 

 and damage fisheries, and thus completed an enterprise, which 

 the state would now give millions to undo. It is only of late 

 years that nations have woke up to a sense of the folly and 

 danger of an indiscriminate destruction of vegetable life. On 

 the Continent the nature, laws of formation, and means of con- 

 trol of sand-dunes have been carefully studied, and various re- 

 parative measures adopted, mostly at public expense. The 

 natural vegetation of dunes appears to be remarkably extensive ; 

 those of Jutland having been found to yield above 230 species, 

 and those of the Prussian coast two-thirds as many. 



Practical men have anxiously investigated the best methods 

 of stimulating aud accelerating these growths, and both in the 

 Old and New World the Sand Reed and plants of similar habit 

 have been extensively planted on moving dunes, and afterwards, 

 when a soil has been formed, shrubs and trees have been 

 established on the once shifting and arid wastes. The Birch 

 in Denmark, the Maritime Pine (P. maritima) in France, and 

 the Ailanthus (A. glandulosa) in Russia, have been employed 

 for this purpose with great success. Many thousands of acres 

 have thus been reclaimed, and modern science has made some 

 progress in repairing the mischiefs wrought by ignorance in 

 days gone by. Thus, educated man asserts his superiority to 

 Nature by improving upon her processes. Yet, we repeat, the 

 history of sand-dunes is but an elaborate comment on the truth 

 that if we would make Nature our friend, when she seems most 

 adverse to our interests, it must be by a reverent study of her 

 laws — the laws of her all-wise Creator, and a humble imitation 

 of her methods. — W. H. Gkosek, B. Sc. (in Science-Gottip). 



PROMOTING SEEDING IN CUCUMBERS. 



In answer to one of your readers who wants to know the best 

 way of getting Cucumbers to bear seed, I send a plan that I 

 have found will answer. 



Let him tie the Cucumbers round with string when half 

 grown, and let the string stay on till the fruit is ripe. He 

 must tie the string round tightly, so that it will by degrees be 

 embedded in the fruit as it grows. Let him put each piece of 

 string from 6 to 8 inches apart. I found this plan answer 

 well.— E. G. 



VIOLA CORNUTA. 



Mb. Bennett, of Osberton, and Mr. Wills, of Huntroyde, 

 have both very kindly presented me with plants of Viola 

 cornuta, and I have no'hesitation in saying that they are very 

 distinct varieties, the kind sent by Mr. Wills being very 

 much superior to that sent by Mr. Bennett. 



I was walking through the famous old garden attached to 

 Bothwell Castle a few days ago, when Mr. Turnbull, the head 



