148 



Canadian Forestry Journal, August, 191 3. 



faith of Department of Lands and 

 Forests in this excellent undertak- 



ing. 



Farmers Mav Buv Back. 



The land which is being gradually 

 reclaimed to its original service of 

 tree growing is on the north shore 

 of the Ottawa, some 44 miles from 

 Montreal and 76 from Ottawa. On 

 one section of a thousand acre patch 

 of abandoned sand plain are located 

 the Government plantations, now 

 about forty-five acres in extent. The 

 Government already owns 350 acres 

 which were bought from farmers at 

 a dollar an acre, the former owners 

 being assured of the privilege of 

 buying back the land at the end of 

 fifteen years at $10 an acre, although 

 with no right to strip off the young 

 timber which will then be upon it. 



Sand Drifts a Menace. 



At the present time these thous- 

 ands of sandv acres near Lachute 

 represent absolute waste and look 

 the picture of desolation. Move than 

 that, they are a grave menace to 

 surrounding fertile land and in the 

 past twenty years or so under the 

 influence of winds have extended 

 their area to a degree which finally 

 alarmed the nearby farmers and 

 hastened action by the Department 

 of Lands and Forests. Local re- 

 cords indicate that about one hund- 

 red years ago the destruction of 

 forest growth commenced. Farms 

 came into being and gave very good 

 crops until perhaps half a century 

 back. Evidence that the ground 

 was gradually petering out became 

 apparent, but the conclusive blight 

 upon the district arrived with a 

 plague of grasshoppers which clear- 

 ed off practically all green vegeta- 

 tion. The recurrence of the plague 

 for several seasons settled farming 

 prospects of dozens of families. 

 Sandy drifts began to appear and 

 with the increasing winds soon 

 widened the gaps between fertile or 

 semi-fertile patches. To-day there 



is not a dollar's worth of cereal or 

 fodder raised on thousands of acres. 



Neighboring Tree Growth. 



Under such circumstances, the 

 Department of Lands and Forests 

 established the plantation. The first 

 object was to bring about a fixation 

 of the sand, the second to put the 

 useless area under a useful crop by 

 the planting of trees. Farmers of 

 the district had done some haphazard 

 planting and secured surprising re- 

 sults. There was also the neighbor- 



cr example of Oka, where the 



m 



Sulpician monks had performed a 

 feat of reclamation and reforestation 

 many vears before under conditions 

 not veVy different to those at La- 

 chute. 



The soil at the Lachute property 

 is sandv but with abundant moisture 

 a few inches below the surface. On 

 the edges of the sand fields some 

 trees of good proportions are found 

 o-rowing, such as white pine, tama- 

 rack, balsam fir, white spruce, white 

 cedar, balsam poplar, aspen poplar 

 and white birch. 



The trees going into the planta- 

 tion have been brought from the 

 provincial nurseries at Berthierville 

 and consist of a variety of conifers, 

 such as white spruce, Norway 

 spruce, white pine, tamarack, bull 

 pine. Scotch pine, with a scattering 

 of green and white ash and elms. 

 Thev were planted four years ago 

 and are seven years from seed. Mr. 

 Piche, who had special charge of the 

 planting work, utilizing the students 

 from Laval forest school of which he 

 is a director, placed the young trees 

 five feet apart each way and achieved 

 the good average of 1.500 trees per 

 dav per man. Careful study of the 

 situation convinced Mr. Piche that 

 in the parts of the plain subject to 

 heavy winds, and therefore heavy 

 drifting, the trees must be preceded 

 bv some treatment of the surface and 

 to this end he adopted the use of 

 beech grass. French government 

 experiments with beech grass had 

 accomplished fine results in the sand 



