124 ELEMENTARY FORESTRY. 



place has been broken. Along the shore of New Jersey, at 

 Seven Mile Beach, there is a dune which is traveling inward at 

 the rate of perhaps fifteen feet per year, and is destroying quite 

 a growth of forest trees. This dune is thirty or forty feet high, 

 as high as the trees, and as the prevailing strong winds are 

 from the east, its tendency is always inland. There are other 

 notable sand dunes at Provincetown, on Cape Cod, Mass., which 

 have been fixed in place by judicious planting. 



In some parts of Europe, notably in Gascony, France, dunes 

 have destroyed an immense amount of territory in former ages. 

 Whole villages have at times been gradually wiped out by the 

 encroaching dunes. The sand is so fine and so easily moved 

 by the wind that there is very little chance for any vegetation to 

 grow on it, and it is only in recent times that methods have 

 been successfully adopted to hold it in place. 



The Most Improved Way of Checking Sand Dunes 

 is to first make a windbreak of boards or poles which may be 

 pulled up as the sand drifts up onto them. These are used tem- 

 porarily to afford an opportunity of getting vegetable growth 

 started. As a rule the vegetable growth which has been most 

 successfully used for fixing sand dunes is that of plants that 

 grow naturally in such places. Such species are generally those 

 that throw out long creeping stems at or just below the surface 

 of the ground, and also such as are capable of healthy growth 

 even when half buried by encroaching sand. We have a number 

 of native species that are adapted to this purpose, among which 

 are the Sand Reed, the Sand Cherry, several varieties of Wil- 

 lows, and Quack Grass. Where these once gain a foothold upon 

 a sand dune they hold it better than would be possible by arti- 

 ficial means. In protecting such land it is generally best to dig 

 up clumps of these grasses, or use long willow cuttings, and set 

 them in place in a wet time. 



In some sections along the Great Lakes the sand is now held 

 in place by the natural covering of weeds and shrubs, but should 

 this be removed and the land broken up there would be much 

 trouble in getting it again fixed in place. Such is the case along 

 the southern shore of Lake Michigan. 



