PREFACE. 



The preparation of this volume for the press was undertaken in con- 

 sequence of a statement in the Standard and Mail, a Capetown 

 paper, of the 22nd July, 1876, to the effect that in the estimates 

 submitted to Parliament £1,000 had been put down for the Cape 

 Flats, it was supposed with a view to its being employed in carrying 

 out planting operations as a means of reclaiming the sandy tracts 

 beyond Salt River. 



In view of the success which has followed the planting of the Landes 

 of Gascony and the Gironde with the maritime pine, it might seem 

 that nothing now can be required in order to arrest and utilise drift- 

 sands, but to plant them judiciously with that tree. But, happily, I 

 may say, the failure of such plantations on the Landes of La Sologne 

 comes to warn us against any such rash generalisation. And the 

 observation of sand downs in Britain, and sand plains elsewhere, show 

 that herbs, carices, reeds, and grasses have operated extensively in 

 arresting effectually, and, according to their measures, in utilising 

 what otherwise would have been barren and destructive sand- 

 wastes. 



Looking at the subject generally, all that I consider established by 

 the pine plantations on the sand-wastes of France is the practicability 

 of arresting and utilising sand-drifts by means of plantations of trees. 

 What has been accomplished there we may legitimately infer may be 

 effected elsewhere, not necessarily by the same means, but by means 

 as appropriate, if they can be discovered. But while this may be all 

 that is established there is much more suggested. 



And still more might be found to be suggested by a study of the 

 whole of the sand-wastes of Europe, and of the natural history of 

 sand, its composition, its formation, and its aggregation on the shore, 

 in dunes, in drifts, in sand-wastes, and in sand plains, and of the 

 various genera and species of plants growing upon it, and of planta- 



