PLANTING OF SAND DDNES. 81 



checker-form,' the great lines being parallel or perpendicular to the 

 prevailing winds (northwest). Those further inland are planted with 

 Scotch pines, in dense masses. The plantation costs about $20 an acre, 

 which includes the covering screens of pine brush, briers, or thorn 

 bushes. 



Tbe maritime pine will not thrive on this coast, as it requires a 

 milder climate. The Scotch pines for this plan are taken two or three 

 years old, and are taken up with spades of special pattern. The balls 

 of earth on the roots will just fit the holes in the sand, and the process 

 is expensiv^e and uncertain as compared with that of planting the 

 maritime pine, where that can be grown. 



Upon Cape Cod and other places on our own coast exposed to injury 

 from drifting sands, the beach grass (Calamagrostis arenaria) has been 

 planted with success, and the government has expended considerable 

 sums for this object. The planting of grass on the dunes of Cape Cod 

 is, however, of no recent date, having been practiced since Colonial 

 days.2 Similar conservative measures were ordered by law, upon the 

 beaches of Long Island, as early as 1758.^ 



Quite extensive plantations of pine, mostly the native pitch pine 

 (Finns rigida), have been made on Cape Cod and the islands of 

 Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, in Massachusetts, in very bleak sit- 

 uations, and with considerable success. They have not been planted 

 upon dunes, but on the tertiary and boulder drift that occurs in these 

 places. On the inside slope of dunes in Provincetown, Cape Cod, small 

 patches of the native pine sometimes occur which have been almost 

 buried in the sands, because the summits and weather slopes were 

 entirely unprotected by vegetation. 



Upon this coast some of the European pines have been found to 

 thrive better than the native species. The Scotch, Austrian, and 

 Corsican pines in particular do well, while the Korway spruce fails. 

 The southwest winds on this coast in spring and autumn in force and 

 regularity amount almost in these respects to the trade winds, and are 

 very trying to seaside tree culture. 



On the Florida coast, the Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) has been 



1 Exijeriments have been made by officers of the United States Engioeers, in trans- 

 planting sods from a marsh to the sands adjacent, in the improvements nndertaken 

 on Cape Cod, Mass. The sods, 6 inches square, were imbedded in the sand in rows 2t 

 feet apart, and 2 feet apart in the rows. Tlie report of 1876 shows that 10,000 sods 

 had been transplanted, and in most cases promised good results. The trial was, how- 

 ever, too recent and too limited to judge of the results. 



The planting of beach grass -was, however, considered the most economical and 

 eftectual means that had been tried for securing loose sand. {Report of the Chief of 

 Engineers, 1876, Part I, p. 188.) 



*Dr. Dwight, in his travels (iii, p. 93), mentions a case where a beach was planted: 

 with the grass above named, raising a dnne so as to close a breach made by the sea. In 

 another instance he records great mischief from pasturing the beach graiss, which al- 

 lowed a thousand acres or more to be blown away in many places to a depth of ten 

 feet. '-Not a green thing was visible except the whortleberries, which tufted a few lone- 

 ly hillocks, rising to the height of the original surface, and prevented by this defense 

 from being blown away also." {lb. p. 101.) 



Professor Hitchcock mentions extensive plantings of beach grass, and observed that 

 two species of the Hudsonia, growing wild here, present no small obstacle to th© 

 sands, although not transplanted for this use. {Geological Report, 1833, p. 130.) 

 .^The beach grass above mentioned grows in tufts of long tine leaves, standing up- 

 right, and when planted some 20 inches apart soon gives good protection. This grass 

 has 1 he peculiarity of rising or growing through or above any ordinary sand-drift^ 

 sometimes rising eight or ten feet above the original roots, though its ordinary height 

 is but 12 to 20 inches. 



3 "An act to restrain the feeding and burning the grass and cutting the timber on 

 certain beaches and islands therein mentioned," passed December X% 1758. Renewed 

 repeatedly in Colonial times, and by State law in 1789. 

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