3?6 ON EMBANKMENTS, PIERS, HARBOUR 



elymus arenarius, arurido arenarius, triticum rcpens, mid several spc* 

 cies of the willow *." 



Mr. Anthony Tatlow, probably copying some previous experi- 

 ments of Sir Thomas Hyde Page, Bart, has ingeniously employed 

 the common furze for the same purpose ; and by forming it iuto an 

 extensive hedge, has made the sea produce a valuable and regular 

 embankment of its own sand. His account of this ingenious con- 

 trivance, as communicated to the Board of Agriculture, A.D. 1800, 

 is as follows : 



" The embankment against the sea. that 1 mentioned when last 



i 



at the Museum, is upon the estate of the Earl of Ashburnham, at 

 Pembrey, in the county of Carmarthen, whither his lordship sent 

 me upon his coal and other business, and with directions to see if I 

 could devise any method of preventing the sea from making further 

 incroachmeut upon his property, which it had been doing for many 

 years, and particularly in October 1 795, had broke in and covered 

 many hundred acres, damaged the houses, buildings, stack. yards, 

 and gardens ; and it was the general opinion, that a regular embank- 

 ment must be formed, which would cost some thousand pounds, he 

 having several miles of coast. The view that I first took was upon 

 a very windy day, and the shore an entire sand, which extended at 

 low water many miles. In riding along, I perceived that any piece 

 of wood, or accidental impediment to the course of the sand, raised 

 a hill : it immediately occurred to me, that by making a hedge at 

 the weak and low places, with wings to catch the sand as the wind 

 blew it in different direction?, I should obtain the desired effect. I 

 therefore directed stakes nine feet long to be cut, and drove one 

 foot and a half into the sand, at two feet and half distance from 

 each other ; betwixt which I had furze interwove, so as to form a 

 regular furze hedge seven feet and a half high. Of this, since last 

 June, I have done eleven hundred and thirty-seven yards; and in 

 October last when I was there, a great deal of the hedge was co- 

 vered, and since that time I am informed by letter, that a great deal 

 more of it is so ; and that the neighbouring inhabitants draw great 

 comfort to themselves, from the security my furze embankment 



* We are indebted for these remarks <o tho use of an unpublished Work of 

 & literary friend, well known to the world^ 



