28 GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



East Harbor, — and which is all that prevents the sea from 

 breaking over into Cape Cod Harbor, — say : " This tract con- 

 sists of loose sand, driven about by every high vs^ind, which 

 throws it lip in heaps like snow drifts. The wind, from any 

 point from north-east to north-west, drives the sand directly 

 from said beach into the channel of East Harbor, and is carried 

 by a strong current into the north-east part of Cape Cod Har- 

 bor. The ocean on the north is wasting this narrow 1:)each 

 away in every storm, and the current in East Harbor channel 

 undermining and destroying it on the south. The decay of 

 said beach has been on the increase for several years ; it has 

 narrowed within seven or eight years, by the tide that runs 

 tlirough East Harbor channel, from eight to ten rods ; where 

 tlie mail stage travelled only one year since, is now the channel, 

 with six feet of water at low tide, and from twelve to fourteen 

 feet at high water." 



The first eiibrt made by the State for the preservation of this 

 important harbor appears to have been in 1714. The town was 

 incorporated in 1727, and was at that time a place of some 

 extent, but the inhabitants soon began to leave, and in less than 

 twenty years it was reduced to two or three families. After 

 the Revolution the place revived, and is now a thriving town. 



The object of the law of 1714 was to arrest the destruction 

 of the trees and shrubbery on the province lands, and on the 

 preservation of which it was thought the harbor depended, as 

 they prevented the drifting of the sand. 



In 1824 commissioners were appointed by the State govern- 

 ment to examine the su1)ject and report what action was neces- 

 sary to prevent the rapid destruction of the harbor. They 

 recommended an act to prevent the destruction of beach grass, 

 and, reported that the sum of thirty-six hundred dollars would 

 be necessary to set out that plant, make fences, &c. The legis- 

 lature in 1826 applied to congress for that sum, and congress has, 

 at different times, made appropriations to the amount of about 

 thirty-eight thousand dollars, which seems to have failed in 

 some measure to accomplish the object intended, and East 

 Harbor is still rapidly filling up. 



Many years ago it was as customary to warn the inhabitants 

 of Truro and some other towns on the Cape every spring, to 



