WASTE LANDS 35 
Experiments at Holkham in Norfolk, and later at 
Formby on the great dune area near Southport, have 
shown that English sand dunes can be afforested with 
pine trees in a perfectly satisfactory manner. 
The Holkham plantations, which cover 500-600 acres 
of sand hills parallel to the shore, date more than forty 
years back, and consist of Austrian (P. nigra) and 
Corsican (P. Laricio) pines, together with some amount 
of Scots pine (P. sylvestris). From a forester’s point 
of view these woods were not planted quite close 
,enough—being intended rather for shelter and to im- 
prove the amenities of the estate than for profit. 
Nevertheless, by natural regeneration the Holkham 
plantations are becoming denser, and should if required 
provide saleable timber. 
It is to be hoped in any scheme of afforestation the 
utilisation of our sand dunes may be seriously con- 
sidered. Rabbits are the bane of dune planting, and 
for success these must be exterminated or held in 
check. 
Another possibility in the way of dune exploitation 
is the improved cultivation of Psamma (marram grass). 
Paper experts have reported very favourably on the 
prospects of marram as a raw material for the manu- 
facture of paper,! though it does not appear to have 
been exploited commercially in this sense hitherto. 
The fibre obtained belongs to the same class as that of 
esparto grass, and can be dealt with in the mills where 
esparto is treated. Before the war we imported some 
200,000 tons of esparto grass from Southern Spain and 
1 Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, 1g1a, p. 396; 1913, 
p- 363. 
