PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 171 
CONTROL OF SHIFTING SANDS. 
Having discussed the problem of snowdrifts, and explained the action of 
winds and the natural laws which govern the deposit of snow in drifts, with 
especial reference to railway cuts in northern latitudes, we reproduced a 
picture, showing the double lines of fences on Soldiers Summit, along the 
line of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway, in Utah. 
In these instances the practice of erecting and maintaining snow guards 
or fences becomes a serious expense to railways, because of the tem- 
porary character of wooden fences, their speedy decay, and the ef- 
fects of strong winds; the summer sun being as destructive as the 
winter's storms. We recommended the use of living hedges in place 
of the boards, and gave the red cedar as one of the best trees for this purpose. 
The Juniperus virginiana, or cedar, with its various modifications, which char- 
acterize the tree when grown in different localities and under greatly varying 
conditions of soil, climate and moisture or aridity, meets all the requirements 
of a plant for this purpose. In Maine, and on the Iludson River, its habit 
is to form a tall, slender tree, not unlike Lombardy poplar in shape; while in 
the mountains of Tennessee, it builds a mammoth trunk, with scragegy, 
spreading branches. In the Garden of the Gods, at the foot of Pike’s Peak, in 
Colorado, its foliage partakes of the character of the desert sage brush, dif- 
fering but slightly from the sage in its color. Again, in the arid plains and 
high altitudes of New Mexico, it makes a slow growth, with thick, bunchy 
foliage, being one of the very few American trees which survive this extreme 
aridity. Wherever birds deposit the seed of the juniper, after eating the aro- 
matic berries which are produced in great profusion, the cedar grows,—quite 
cosmopolitan in its habit. 
The cedar is of slow growth under arid conditions, and requires but little 
pruning to maintain a low-growing hedge, dense enough to break the force 
of a wind storm,—strong-rooted and powerful to withstand any gales. 
Once planted, the hedge becomes a permanent fixture, ending forever the 
expense of snow guards, and in almost any locality. 
Quite a different problem confronts the Oregon Rail and Navigation Com- 
pany along the Columbia River, above The Dalles. The debris brought down 
from the mountains by the flood tide of the river consists of a very finely divided 
light sand. This is deposited along the margin of the stream as the water goes 
down, there being some forty feet difference between high and low water in 
the Columbia. The warm sunshine of summer, together with warm breezes, 
evaporate the moisture from this deposit, and the winds bear it in shore, coy- 
