FORESTRY IN FRANCE. 261 
confining itself to the exemption from taxes for thirty years of all 
lands planted up. But the State has the right to force the com- 
munes to drain their swamps and wastes, with a view to rendering 
them suitable either for cultivation or for the growth of trees; 
and when this is done, advances of funds may be made under 
certain conditions, one of which is that the commune has the right 
to surrender to the State, in satisfaction of all claims, a portion of 
the area not exceeding one-half. 
Tue DuNES OF THE WEST COAST. 
The winds that blow continually from the ocean on to the west 
coast, carry with them enormous quantities of sand, which, advan- 
cing steadily over the country at the average rate of some 14 feet per 
annum, in the form of moving hills called dunes, bury under them 
the fields and villages they reach. It has been calculated that 
nearly 90 cubic yards of sand per yard of coast line are thus 
annually transported inland. Works to arrest the destructive effects 
of this invasion of sand have been in progress since 1789 ; they 
were originally carried out under the department of Public Works, 
but since 1862 they have been placed under the Forest Department. 
The total area of the dunes is said to be 224,154 acres, a part of 
which belongs to the State, and a part to private owners, while a 
much smaller portion is communal property. 
In exposed situations, the protective works consist of a wooden 
palisade, erected at a short distance above high-water mark, and 
destined to promote the formation of an artificial dune, with a 
view to prevent fresh arrivals of sand from being blown over the 
country. Under its shelter, seeds of various kinds, principally 
those of the maritime pine (Pinus maritima), broom, gorse, and 
gourbet (Arundo arenaria), are sown; the seeds being covered 
with brushwood to prevent the sand in which they are sown from 
moving ; and the sowing is thus continued inland, in successive 
belts, until a crop of trees is raised on the entire area. In less exposed 
situations, a wattled fence is substituted for the wooden palisades. 
In the departments of Gironde and Landes, forests of the maritime 
pine have been most successfully raised in this manner, the trees 
being tapped for resin, and the wood of those which have been 
exhausted being sold for railway sleepers and other purposes. But 
north of the Loire the maritime pine is not sown, as in that region 
it does not yield a suflicient quantity of resin to repay the cost of 
