44 The Great World's Farm 



actual loss, of the fields in their vicinity, which have been 

 carried bodily away. 



In some parts of the French Alps half the cultivated 

 ground has been washed away, owing to the reckless 

 destruction of the pines; and this is not all, for when the 

 forests are gone, not only does the soil follow, but so do 

 the avalanches; or rather they come! plunging down 

 from the heights above and overwhelming everything in 

 their way. The trees, and the trees only, were strong 

 enough to resist them. 



It is remarkable what a very slight obstacle is often 

 enough to stop the onward motion of a sand-drift, a few 

 oleanders, by no means very sturdy shrubs, being often 

 found sufficient for the purpose in the Bermudas. 



In the wide plains of South Hungary, where the wind 

 has nothing to break its force, the railway lines are often 

 in winter blocked with snowdrifts, which there seemed to 

 be no means of preventing, until in one part the experi- 

 ment was tried of planting hedges of Pronins roses on 

 each side. The hedges are of the height of a tall man, 

 and the lines were kept clear during some exceptionally 

 heavy falls of snow a few years ago where they were 

 invariably blocked before. 



On the southwest coast of France there is an extensive 

 sandy region known as the Landes, which at one time 

 seemed likely to be converted into a veritable Sahara, and 

 was saved from this fate by nothing else but the planting 

 of pines. 



In the last century the sand-dunes were always in 

 motion, constantly changing their places, ebbing and flow- 

 ing hke the tide, but creeping gradually further and further 

 inland. When the storm-wind blew from the west it 



