286 Forestry Quarterly. 



On active dunes the planting of grass or other herbs is absolutely 

 necessary for the tentative holding of the sand, but forest trees must 

 be planted to bring about the fineal reclamation. In the Report of 

 the Harbor and Land Commissioners of Massachusetts for 1896 the 

 chairman of the commission, who made a thorough investigation of 

 the Province Lands, says: 



"It is obvious that the -work of planting with beach grass must 

 be done first, and that this must be followed up by planting shrubs 

 and trees of rapid growth, interspersed with tliose of slow growth 

 before the labor of planting shall be completed." 



Mr. A. S. Hitchcock of the Division of Agrostology in Bulletin 

 No. 57 of the Bureau of Plant Industry, entitled "Methods Used for 

 Controlling and Reclaiming Sand Dunes," writes: 



"The reclamation is most permanent when the dunes are covered 

 with forest; hence forestation is the ultimate aim wherever possible." 



The director of the Central Experiment Station at Ottawa, Canada, 

 was sent abroad in 1901 to investigate dune planting, with a view 

 of planting and reclaiming the shifting sands of Sable Island, off 

 the eastern coast of Canada. After making thorough investigations 

 in France, Holland and Denmark, he reports that trees must be used 

 if permanent results are to be obtained. 



DUNE RE'CLAMATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



The work of planting dunes and sand wastes in this country has 

 been very limited and to a large extent is still in the experimental 

 stage. At Cape Cod, from 1826 to 1838, numerous plantings of 

 beach grass were made by the government and by the town of 

 Provincetown at a cost of twenty-eight thousand dollars. Constant 

 care was not given this planting, and fishermen and laborers cut 

 sod and removed woody growth until the dune lands reverted to 

 their original conditions. Only now, with renewed efforts, is the 

 woik beginning to be successful. Along the coast of Long Island, 

 New Jersey and the Carolinas a few scattered attempts have been 

 made to hold the dunes, but nothing of importance has been ac- 

 complished. A little planting of grasses was done at the mouth of 

 the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, but the work was not continued, 

 and now conditions are even worse than they were before this work 

 was started. Here beach grass (Ammophila arenaria), sea-lime 

 grass (Calamovilfa longifolia) were used, and would have been sue- 



