96 MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



more set them free, occasioning many of the sand-drifts 

 of the present day. 



Of fixed sands being set free to drift, and to desolate 

 fertile lands through th destruction of trees, an illustra- 

 tion is supplied by the history of drift-sands in the vicinity 

 of Danzig. 



' Amongst the more extensive sea-shore sand-hills/ 

 writes Herr Wessely, in his treatise entitled Der Europti- 

 ishe Flugsand und seine Kulture (pp. 221, &c.), ' may be 

 reckoned those on the gulf of the East Sea, through which, 

 flowing past the great commercial town of Danzig, the 

 Vistula empties itself into the sea; the sand-hills there 

 rise to the height of 180 feet above the sea-level. These 

 dunes, which are continuous from the present mouth of 

 the Vistula, and indeed from Neufaehr to Kahlberg, 

 extend over some six German miles [a German mile is 

 equal to four and a-half English miles], were by man's 

 hand, and through man's spirit, first created and then 

 subdued, and were thus in a sense made a practice ground 

 and high school for Seestrand Dunenbau, or culture on 

 sea-side dunes. As is pretty generally the case on the 

 coasts of the Baltic, the dunes here, with a solitary excep- 

 tion, were on the slope towards the sea, and were exposed 

 without defence to the blast of the sea breeze, which 

 would allow no tree planted by the hand of man to thrive, 

 were by Nature herself, covered with white pines and all 

 kinds of bushes, and, promiscuously among these, heather, 

 and mosses, and grasses in a word, with plants of one 

 kind or another, and so protected against the sea breezes. 

 But the unreasoning greed of man destroyed these woods, 

 uprooting even the stumps of the trees, allowed the cattle 

 continuously to wander about upon the dunes for pastur- 

 age in short, treated these so recklessly that the protect- 

 ing covering of them disappeared, and the masses of sand 

 of which they were composed became exposed to the 

 drifting action of the wind. 



'As a consequence of this, the dunes naturally began 



