358 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



August 



reversed at the end of a century to 

 come? From Maine to Florida and 

 from Mexico to British Columbia the 

 causes which made the dunes of Gas- 

 cony instruments of devastation are at 

 work almost without attempt on our 

 part to limit their operation, while across 

 the ocean, encouraged by the success of 

 a wonderful experiment, the French are 

 trying to find a way to change the 

 character of still greater areas by refor- 

 estation of the Sahara, not by means of 

 the maritime pine and its productive 

 concomitants, but by the cultivation of 

 trees and shrubs adapted to the climatic 

 conditions of another continent. That 

 the greater struggle with nature will 

 succeed no one who considers the con- 

 ditions there presented and the charac- 

 ter of the people who have undertaken 

 it can doubt. 



LAND AND FOREST TENURE IN FRANCE. 



It is a curious fact that social and 

 political conditions have been not only 

 an important factor of this climatic and 



economic experiment, but there is a pe- 

 culiar resemblance between the natural 

 and the artificial conditions which have 

 cooperated to insure success in this 

 struggle between man and nature, which 

 began on the shores of the Gulf of Gas- 

 cony. The material struggle was carried 

 on not by means of the maritime pine 

 alone, but by it in connection with the 

 undergrowth of all sorts native to this 

 region. The function of this under- 

 growth was to shade the young pines 

 until they could send their roots down 

 into the moisture that percolates through 

 the sand during the rainy period. In 

 addition to this, they kept piling up the 

 sands which were blown over the crest 

 of the dune and made the foothold of the 

 pines continually firmer, broadening the 

 crest of each dune, and so promoting a 

 mesa-like formation, instead of the sharp, 

 wave-like crest of the dune. It is to the 

 cooperation of these two forces the 

 deep-rooted pine with the low, clinging 

 undergrowth that the march of the 

 smothering sands was stayed. 



THE TOP OF A DUNE ON THE NEW JERSEY COAST HELD BY A PATCH OE BAYBERRY. 



