ON SEA-SIDE PLANTING. 107 
and cheapness on the Continent, particularly near Bordeaux, 
where they are produced on sandy regions similar to that I 
have attempted to describe, and to which I shall now refer. 
Mode of growing plantations on sands along the French coast 
The greatest triumph of arboricultural skill in reclaiming. 
sand-drift was recorded by a Commission appointed by the 
French Government to report on the pinaster forests formed 
by M. Bremontier, of the Administration of Forests. In 1789 
M. Bremontier commenced his operations at the Gulf of 
Gascony, where the downs offered nothing to the eye but a. 
monotonous repetition of white wavy mountains, destitute of 
vegetation, and agitated by the wind. In 1811 the Commis- 
sion reported that 12,500 acres of downs had been covered 
with thriving plantations by means of sowing the seeds. The 
process is as remarkable for its simplicity as for its success. 
It consisted in sowing two pounds of the seeds of the pinaster, 
mixed with four to five pounds of broom-seed per acre, and 
immediately covering with branches of pine or other trees, 
with the leaves on, commencing at the side next the sea, or 
that from which the wind generally prevailed, and sowing in 
narrow zones in a direction at right angles to that of the 
course of the wind; the first sown zone being protected by a. 
line of hurdles, this zone protecting the second, the second 
the third, and so on. After sowing, the ground was immedi- 
ately thatched with branches, overlapped, to protect the seed, 
with a hurdle fence erected to intercept the progress of the 
sand. In a word, wherever the seeds were sown the surface 
of the sand was thatched. A thatching of rushes, reeds, or 
sea-weed was also used, and was quite as effectual as the 
branches. In six weeks or two months the broom-seeds are 
said to have produced plants six inches high, which attained 
three or four times that height during the first season. The 
pinaster plants do not rise above three or four inches the first 
season, and it is generally seven or eight years before they 
overtop the broom, which often in these downs attains to the 
height of twelve or fifteen feet. At the age of ten or twelve 
years the pines have in a great measure suffocated the broom ; 
