58 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Afforestation of Waste Lands in Denmark. 



Lt.-Col. Martin-Martin writes from Skye calling attention to 

 an interesting article by Mr James Baker, which appears in 

 The Outlook for 28th August last, from which we take the follow- 

 ing extracts : — 



" Shortly after the war ^ a few men, led by Mr Mourier 

 Petersen, Mr Hagemann, Colonel Dalgas, and Mr Morville, 

 founded a society " Det Danske Hedeskab " (the Danish 

 Heaths Society), and the aim of this society was to develop the 

 planting of trees on sand wastes and districts useless for other 

 cultivation ; to plant hedges and create wind shelters ; to 

 cultivate marshes, bogs, and other waste lands ; to develop 

 and assist the transport of chalk and lime into districts 

 devoid of these necessary products, and in general to assist 

 reclamation of waste districts. The work commenced in 

 Jutland, but now spreads over all Denmark, and the King 

 since its foundation has been a patron and takes an active 

 interest in the work. 



" The present president of the society is Count Luttichau, and 

 the chairman of the committee Mr Dalgas, son of Colonel 

 Dalgas, both of whom I had the pleasure of meeting on the 

 occasion of the society's annual inspection of some of their 

 work, just before the war broke out, in June 1914. 



" The whole visit was intensely interesting, but perhaps 

 more exciting and even weirdly interesting was a visit to the 

 Sahara, a shifting-sand district near Skagen. Near this the 

 work is going on of cultivating these restless sands, but 

 this Sahara is to be kept as a show place, and wild and 

 strange as the African desert it is, but of a whiter, finer 

 sand. 



" We passed through miles of State fir plantations, and then 

 on to the sands and were shown the Marehalm, the first grass 

 that is planted, with running roots 4 to 5 yards long and 



^ The war meant is that between Prussia and Denmark which ended in 

 1864. 



