76 PLANTING OF SAND DUNES. 



and which have been objects of solicitude and expense in arresting 

 their extension and coverings their surface with a vegetable growth. 



In 1780, M. Br^montier, availing himself, it is said, of a suggestion 

 made by a priest, curate of Mimizon, devised the means of fixing these 

 dunes, and published the memoir below cited, ^ in which the principles in- 

 volved in their formation were carefully studied, and remedies were sug- 

 gested. These the experience of nearly a century has fully justified.* 

 He undertook, in 1787, under the patronage of government, the plant- 

 ing of maritime pines with great success. 



The Code of Dunes in France dates from 13 Messidor, year IX (July 

 2, 1801), and directs that measures shall be taken for continuing to fix 

 and plant the dunes on the coast of Gascony, beginning with those of 

 La Teste, after the plans presented by citizen Bremontier, engineer in 

 chief. A commission was appointed, consisting of the engineer in chief 

 of the department as president, a forest administrator, and three mem- 

 bers from the Society of Sciences, Arts, and Belles-lettres of Bordeaux, 

 section of agriculture, to be appointed by the prefect upon nomination 

 of the society. This commission was to direct and supervise the work 

 and disburse the funds set apart for this object. In 1808 a similar com- 

 mission was appointed for the department of Landes. In 1810 another 

 decree was issued for the preparation of plans by the engineers of the 

 Fonts et Chaussees, for the fixing and planting of all dunes in the mari- 

 time departments wherever they existed, and in case they were the 

 property of communes or of individuals who were unable or unwilling to 

 execute the works ordered, then the expenses were to be undertaken by 

 the State, who reserved all the profits from cuttings or other income un- 

 til the expenses were recovered with int»^rest, when they were to be re- 

 turned to the owners with obligation of maintenance of the improve- 

 ments made. Cuttings of every kind were forbidden on such places 

 unless specially authorized, and provision was made for guarding pres- 

 ent and future works of this kind under the same rules that applied to 

 communal forests. 



Ey an ordinance of February 5, 1817, these works in the departments 

 of Gironde and Landes, under the director-general of Ponfse^ ChauNsecs, 

 under the ministry of the interior, and an annual credit of not less than 

 90,000 francs was granted for this service; but whenever the plantations 

 were definitely established, their care was assigned to the forest depart- 

 ment, tbe seeds and brush being furnished by the latter. 



^Mcmoirc sur les Dunes. By N. T. Brdmc ntier, 1796, p. 74. This is republished in vol. 

 i, Ist series, of Annates des Fonts et C/iaws«^s (1833), p. 145. This engineer died iu Paris, 

 in August, 1809. 



*Mr. George B. Emerson, in the second edition of his ^'Report on the Trees and Shruha 

 groiving naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts," i, p. 68, says : 



"I visited, in 1872, the region saved by Brdmontier, and examined the work he had 

 done, and its effects. The whole country, for more than a hundred miles along the 

 Atlantic coast of Gascony, and from four to eighteen landward, had been covered with 

 sand-hills. * * * The process of ruin had been going on for centuries, aud some 

 of the sand-hills were hundreds of feet high. In the midst of this recovered region I 

 stopped a day or two at a beautiful town, where a hundred thousand persons from 

 Paris and other cities of France, attracted by the genial climate and the health-giving 

 atmosphere of the pine forests, had passed the winter. I walked and drove along ihe 

 sandy roads, visited a monument to Brdmontier, erected by his brother, ten miles or 

 more inland in the redeemed territory, and saw in many places deciduous trees — oaks, 

 ashes, beeches, and others — growing luxuriantly under the protection of the pines. 

 One cannot help feeling while enjoying this the justice of our countryman Marsh, who 

 counted Bremontier, and Eeventlov, who conducted a similar work in Denmark, as 

 among the greatest benefactors of their race." 



Historical information of interest relating to dunes will be found in "The Earth aa 

 Modified by Human Action." By Geo. P. Marsh, p. 587-608. Also in a series of articles 

 by M. de Vasselot, in the Eevue des Eawx et Forels, 1875. 



