INLAND SAND. 635 



In South Eussia, near Odessa, Ailanthus glandulosa, Desf., is 

 used on sand-dunes, and also in the south of France. This 

 very accommodating species grows rapidly and sends out 

 numerous suckers, and thrives on the hot southern slopes of 

 the Siwalik Hills in India, as well as in smoky London. The 

 cluster pine may also be used, as in Gascony, but it is not very 

 frost-hardy. Sowing is still employed in restocking bare sandy 

 tracts in France, 15 to 20 Ibs. of seed being used per acre ; 

 but in Germany, 3 to 4-year-old transplants with balls of earth 

 are now planted in rows at right angles to the prevailing wind. 

 The plants are put in deeply to prevent exposure of the roots, 

 and because they suffer in summer from the heating of the 

 sand. Scots pines do not suffer at all from this deep planting. 

 In order to get the area stocked as soon as possible, intervals 

 of only 2| to 3 feet are left between the rows, and the plants 

 are 1 to 1J feet apart in the rows. In Hannover, they are 

 planted with a heavy planting iron, termed Buttlar's iron,* 

 and a mixture of f peat with 2 per cent, unslaked lime and J 

 sand is used to fill the holes round the roots. The peat is 

 hygroscopic and retains moisture near the plants' roots. 



Eobinias, poplars and willows are put in as cuttings in little 

 clumps, or in furrows. Sometimes the ground is cultivated 

 before the cuttings are put in, and Scots pine seed sown in the 

 depressions. Hubert recommends that grass seed should be 

 strewn over the plantations. In Austria, Jerusalem artichokes 

 (HeliantJius tuberosus) are frequently planted to shelter the 

 woody plants against heat and cold. 



In case the sandy tract is so extensive that it cannot be con- 

 veniently planted up in one year, a plan of operations extending 

 over a series of years should be drawn up. A commencement 

 should then be made on the windy side of the area, and the 

 cultivation carried on in strips under shelter of the first year's 

 work. In the Landes of Gascony, shelter-fences are erected 

 to the leeward of each year's strip to protect the plants from 

 sand blown back by land breezes. Whenever the work is 

 thus gradually done, great care must be taken to fill up all 

 gaps in the areas to windward before commencing the work 

 beyond it. 



* Vide Schlich's " Manual of Forestry," Vol. II., p. 124. 



