172 FOREST PLANTING. 



safely be grown there. Common juniper is the tree gen- 

 erally planted to protect that side of the wood area 

 which is principally exposed to strong winds. Other use- 

 ful trees are the Canadian poplar, some pines as the pitch 

 pine, scrub pine, Scotch pine, some acacias, and even 

 some oaks and birches may be used as an admixture. 

 The leading tree should be the Scotch pine, the plant- 

 ing of which is commonly done by setting out three- 

 year old plants with the balls. If one-year old seed- 

 lings are used they should be planted close to the north 

 side of the adjoining sod in order that the sun during the 

 hot summer months cannot so easily penetrate through 

 the soil, and dry up the roots of the young plants. 



The most successful attempts for bringing inland sand 

 wastes into such a condition as to use them either as for- 

 est-grounds or as grain-bearing fields, have been made in 

 France with the sandy " Landes " of Gascony and of the 

 Gironde. These sand-wastes, containing several millions 

 of acres poor sand land, from one, to one-and-a-half feet 

 deep, with shifting sand at the top and resting upon an 

 impermeable layer of hard-pan, were about forty years 

 ago, during the summer time, great deserts; and during 

 the winter overflown, with water. They could only sup- 

 port a very small population, living on the scant revenue 

 derived from little flocks of poorly fed sheep. At the 

 present time they are covered either with splendid pine 

 and oak forests or with grain-bearing fields. This has 

 been accomplished by first : draining off the stagnant 

 water and then : sowing some of the above-named grasses, 

 the grounds became in due time quite compact. They 

 were then in such a condition that sowing and respect- 

 ively planting pines in combination with other trees as 

 red oak, post oak, birch and chestnuts could be under- 

 taken. The first two named kinds of trees succeeded 

 especially well ; they furnish now the material required 



