Grasses 155 
upon whomsoever should destroy these good 
friends of the nation, and even the possession of 
any of their stalks, within eight miles of the 
coast, was a penal offence. 
In Holland like laws protected the grasses which 
have made it possible for the little country to hold 
the lands so laboriously wrested from the North Sea. 
Cape Cod folks, once upon a time, were legally 
compelled to turn out every April and plant mar- 
ram grass,—much as the inhabitants of some rural 
districts must give a certain number of days’ labor, 
each spring, to the work of road-mending. ‘‘ Town 
and harbor of Provincetown owe their preservation 
to this grass,’’ says Lamson-Scribner. 
At one time Provincetown had a ‘‘beach grass 
committee,’’ whose duty it was to enter any man’s 
enclosure, summer or winter, and set out marram, 
or ‘‘beach-grass’’ as it was called, ‘‘if the sand 
were uncovered or movable.”’ 
Sand-storms, once the terror of the town, were 
thus entirely prevented. 
We have now laws for the protection of forests, 
and it has been suggested that government might, 
with equal wisdom, concern itself in the preserva- 
tion of those grasses which hold together mud-flats 
and sandy shores. 
