26 GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



In tlie year 1853, I was requested by the late T. "W. Harris, 

 to make this grass a special study in the course of my observa- 

 tions, and since that time I have tried in every way, by personal 

 inquiries and by correspondence, to collect whatever there might 

 be of interest in relation to it. 



The town of Provincetown, once called Cape Cod, where the 

 Pilgrims first landed, and its harbor, still called the harbor of 

 Cape Cod, — one of the best and most important in the United 

 States, — sufficient in depth for ships of the largest size, and in 

 extent, to anchor three thousand vessels at once, owe their 

 preservation to this grass. To an mhabitant of an inland 

 country, it is difficult to conceive the extent and the violence 

 with which the sands at tlie extremity of Cape Cod are thrown 

 up from the depths of the sea, and left on the beach in thou- 

 sands of tons by every driving storm. These sand hills wlien 

 dried by the sun are hurled by the winds into the harbor and 

 upon the town. A correspondent at Provincetown says ; 

 " Beach grass is said to have been cultivated here as early as 

 1812. Before that time, when the sand drifted down upon the 

 dwelling-houses, — as it did whenever the beach was broken, — 

 to save them from burial the only resort was to wheeling it oflf 

 with barrows. Thus tons were removed every year from places 

 that are now perfectly secure from the drifting of sand. Indeed, 

 were it not for the window glass in some of the oldest houses in 

 these localities, you would be ready to deny this statement, but 

 the sand has been blown with such force, and so long against 

 this glass as to make it perfeclhj groimd. I know of some 

 windows tlirough which you cannot see an oljject, except to 

 remind you of tliat passage where men were seen ' as trees 

 walking.' " 



Congress appropriated, between the years 1826 and 1839, 

 about twenty-eight thousand dollars, which were expended in 

 setting out beach grass back of the village, for. the protection of 

 the harbor. From the seed of this grass it is estimated that 

 nearly as much ground has become planted with it as was cov- 

 ered by the general government. In 1854, five tliousand dol- 

 lars were expended most wisely by tlie general government in 

 adding to the work so nobly begun ; and the experience of 

 former years was of great value to the efficiency of this latter 

 effort. The work of fortification or protection is not yet com- 



