Grasses 155 



upon whomsoever should destroy these good 

 friends of the nation, and even the possession of 

 any of their stalks, within eight miles of the 

 coast, was a penal offence. 



In Holland like laws protected the grasses which 

 have made it possible for the little country to hold 

 the lands so laboriously wrested from the North Sea. 



Cape Cod folks, once upon a time, were legally 

 compelled to turn out every April and plant mar- 

 ram grass, much as the inhabitants of some rural 

 districts must give a certain number of days' labor, 

 each spring, to the work of road-mending. "Town 

 and harbor of Provincetown owe their preservation 

 to this grass," says Lamson-Scribner. 



At one time Provincetown had a "beach grass 

 committee," whose duty it was to enter any man's 

 enclosure, summer or winter, and set out marram, 

 or "beach-grass" as it was called, "if the sand 

 were uncovered or movable." 



Sand-storms, once the terror of the town, were 

 thus entirely prevented. 



We have now laws for the protection of forests, 

 and it has been suggested that government might, 

 with equal wisdom, concern itself in the preserva- 

 tion of those grasses which hold together mud-flats 

 and sandy shores. 



