DUNES OF DENMARK. 671 



time as in Denmai'k, and which ai-e, in principle and in many of 

 their details, similar to those employed in the latter kingdom — 

 have been conducted on a far larger scale, and with greater suc- 

 cess, than in any other coimtry. This is partly owing to a chmate 

 more favorable to the growth of suitable forest trees than that of 

 Northern Em-ope, and partly to the hberality of the Government, 

 which, having more important landed interests to protect, has 

 put larger means at the disposal of the engineers than Denmark 

 and Prussia have found it convenient to appropriate to that pur- 

 pose. The area of the dunes already secm'ed from drifting, and 

 planted by the processes invented by Bremontier and perfected 

 by his successors, is about 100,000 acres.* This amount of pro- 

 ductive soil, then, has been added to the resources of France, and 

 a still greater quantity of valuable land has been thereby rescued 

 from the otherwise certain destruction with which it was threat- 

 ened by the advance of the roUing sand-hills. 



The improvements of the dunes on the coast of "West Prussia 

 began in 1795, under Soren Bjoren, a native of Denmark, and, 

 with the exception of the ten years between 1807 and 1817, they 

 have been prosecuted ever since. The methods do not differ es- 

 sentially from those employed in Denmark and France, though 

 they are modified by local circumstances, and, with respect to the 

 trees selected for planting, by climate. In 1850, between the 

 mouth of the Yistula and Kahlberg, 6,300 acres, including about 

 1,900 acres planted with pines and birches, had been secured 

 from drifting ; between Kahlberg and the eastern boundary of 

 "West Prussia, 8,000 acres ; and important preliminary operations 

 had been carried on for subduing the dunes on the west coast, f 



The tree which has been found to thrive best upon the sand- 

 hills of the French coast, and at the same time to confine the 

 sand most firmly and yield the largest pecuniary returns, is the 

 maritime piue, Pw/m maritima, a species valuable both for its 



* These plantations, perseveringly continued from the time of Bremontier, 

 now cover more than 40,000 hectares, and compose forests which are not only 

 the salvation of the department, but constitute its wealth." — Clave, Etudes 

 Forestiires, p. 254. 



Other authors have stated the plantations of the French dunes to be much 

 more extensive. 



t Krause, Duneribau, pp. 34, 38, 40. 



