PLANTING ON INLAND SAND-DRIFTS. 171 



CHAPTEK VIII. 



FOREST PLANTING ON INLAND SAND-DRIFTS. 



The diflScalties which have to be overcome in order 

 to aforest sand-wastes or pine-barrens, are, as we have 

 seen in the preceding chapter, not inconsiderable. And 

 yet they will be still greater and nearly insurmount- 

 able when sand-drifts or blowing sands are to be 

 brought into a condition which shall render them suit- 

 able for sylviculture. In general there are two different 

 phases in which sand-drifts are met with. One form is 

 that of barren plains in the interior of our State, an- 

 other that of the downs or dunes, that is: the shifting 

 hillocks upon the sea coast. Undoubtedly the former 

 have been in times long past fixed naturally by arbor- 

 eous growth ; while the sand-drifts on the sea coast never 

 have been covered with any substantial vegetation. 



The inland sand-drifts can be brought into cultivation 

 after the mobile sand on the surface of the barren plains 

 has been bound or fixed. This operation is accomplished 

 by, first, making the ground as even as possible, and 

 then laying over it in a chessboard-like way, sods taken 

 from old pastures or peatbogs, whereupon the whole 

 tract — both the covered and the uncovered part of it — 

 is seeded down with grasses which check the extension 

 of shifting sands. Especially recommendable for this 

 purpose are : arundo arenaria, elymus arenaria and other 

 grasses growing upon dunes. These grasses send their 

 roots deeply into the loose soil, consolidate the sand with 

 their roots and rootlets, prevent its drifting and render 

 it, during an undisturbed growth of several years, so com- 

 pact that trees, which are content with poor soil, may 



