650 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



4029. Embankments for fixing dr fling-sands, shells, or mud. In several tracts of 

 coast, the sea at ordinary tides barely covers a surface of sand ; and these sands in dry 

 weather, during high winds, are drifted and blown about in all directions. Great part of 

 the north shores of the Solway Frith, of Lancaster Bay, and of the coast of Norfolk, is 

 of this description. Young, in hh Farmer s Letters, informs us, that a considerable 

 part of the county of Norfolk was drift sand, even as far inland as Brandon in SuiFolk, 

 before the introduction of the turnip culture; and Harte (Essay I.) states that some of 

 what is now the richest land in Holland, was, about the middle of the sixteenth century, 

 of this description. The suggestion of any mode, therefore, by which, at a moderate 

 expense, such tracts could be fixed, and covered with vegetation, must be deemed worthy 

 of notice. The mode which nature herself employs is as follows : After the tides and 

 wind have raised a marginal steep of land as high as high water-mark, it becomes by 

 degrees covered with vegetation, and chiefly by the elymus arenarius, triticum junceum, 

 various species of juncus, and sometimes by the gallium verum. With the exception of 

 the first of these plants (the leaves and stalks of which are manufactured into mats and 

 ropes in Anglesea, and the grain of which is sometimes ground and used as meal in 

 Ireland), they are of no other use than fixing the sands, which, being composed in great 

 part of the debris of shells, expand as they decay, and contribute to raising the surface 

 still higher, when the fibrous roots of good grasses soon destroy the others, 



4030. To assist nature infixing drft-sands, it is only necessary to transplant the elymus, 

 which is to be liad in abundance in almost every sandy, coast in Britain ; and as it would 

 be liable to be blown away with the sands, if merely inserted in the common way, it 

 seems advisable to tie the plants to the upper ends of willow or elder rods, of two or three 

 feet in length, and to insert these in the sand, by which means there is the double chance 

 of the grass growing, and the truncheon taking root. The elder will grow exposed to 

 the sea breeze, and no plant throws out so many and such vigorous roots in proportion to 

 its shoots. 



403 1 . The mode by which such sands were fixed in Holland was by the formation of wicker- 

 work embankments, and by sticking in the sands branches of trees, bushes, furze, &c. 

 in all directions. These obstructed the motion of the sands, and collected masses of sand, 

 shells or mud, and sea-weeds around them, which were immediately planted with some 

 description of creeping grass ; or, what was more frequent, covered with a thin coating 

 of clay, or alluvial earth, and sown with clover. Though the most certain and least ex- 

 pensive mode of gaining such lands be undoubtedly that of seconding the efforts of nature, 

 by inserting bushes, and planting the elymus in this way ; yet it may sometimes be 

 desirable to make a grand eflPort to protect an extensive surface, by forming a bank of 

 branches, which might, in a single or several tides, be filled with sand and shells. It 

 is evident, that such a bank might be constructed in various ways ; but that which would 

 be most certain of remaining firm, and effecting the purpose, would be one regularly 

 constructed of framed timber, the section of which would resemble a trussed roof; each 

 truss being joined in the direction of the bank by rafters, and the whole inside and surface 

 stuck full of branches. To retain it firm, piles would require to be driven into the sand, 

 to the upper parts of which would be attached the trusses. The height of such a barrier 

 would require to be several feet above that of the highest spring-tides ; and the more 

 its width at base exceeded the proportion of that of an equilateral triangle the better. 



4032. A mode suited to a less extensive scale of operation, is to intersect a sandy shore in 

 all directions^ with common dead, or wicker-work hedges, formed by first driving a row 

 of stakes six or eight feet into the ground, leaving their tops three or four feet above it, 

 and then weaving among these stakes, branches of trees, or the tops of hedges. The Dutch 

 are said to weave straw ropes in this way, and thereby to collect mud in the manner of 

 warjiing. This mode being little expensive seems to deserve a trial in favorable situa- 

 tions ; and, in so doing, it must not be forgotten, that much depends on the immediate 

 management of the surface, after it is in some degree fixed. In an extensive trial of 

 this sort at present in progress on the west coast of Scotland, under an English gentle- 

 man, seeds and roots are baked in a mixture of loam and dung in the gravel, and then 

 formed into masses, and scattered over a sandy surface. These, from their weight, will 

 not, it is thought, be moved by the water or the wind ; but becoming more or less 

 covered with sand, the mass will be kept moist, and the seeds and roots will grow, and, 

 fixing themselves in the soil, will in time cover the surface with verdure. The experi- 

 ment is ingenious, and we hope will be crowned with success. 



Sect. 1 1* Of guarding the Banks, and otherwise improving the Course of Rivers and 



Streams. 



4033. The subject of guarding the banks of rivers, is of considerable interest to the 

 proprietors of lands situated in hilly districts, where, in the valleys and on the hill sides, 

 the streams often produce ravages on the banks, and sometimes change their courses. 



4034. The natural licence (f rivers, Marshal observes, is- not only destructive of 



