41 6 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



Dane Fixation on Cape Cod. 



I append here an interesting letter on the work of dune fixation on Cape Cod, 

 received recently from Hon. Leonard W. Ross, of Boston : 



Replying to your inquiry of recent date, concerning the work of reclaiming the sand wastes 

 of the " Province Lands" on Cape Cod, it gives me pleasure to say that the result of our work 

 since 1895 proves that the problem has been solved, so far as it applies to this area. 



The " Province Lands " are owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and are under 

 the supervision of the board of Harbor and Land Commissioners. These lands, containing over 

 three thousand acres, as well as several thousand acres adjoining in the towns of Provincetown 

 and Truro, are situated at the extreme end of Cape Cod, constituting an "arm," which makes 

 out several miles into Massachusetts Bay, and consist entirely of a clean, sharp sand. I under- 

 stand that borings have been made to a depth of more than one hundred feet without finding 

 any other geological formation. It was formerly covered with a strong growth of, principally, 

 pitch pine {Pinus rigida) and mixed hard woods — maple, beech, birch, red, black and white 

 oaks, with a strong mixed undergrowth of clethra, azalea, amelanchier, dwarf cherry, bayberry, 

 wild roses, etc. 



The necessities of the people who settled on the Cape— formerly a thriving population 

 engaged in fisheries, but now grown to a municipality of some five thousand inhabitants — required 

 this wood and timber for domestic uses. It was therefore cut, and in a ruthless manner, thus 

 giving the strong winds a hold upon the sand, which immediately began to drift inland, or 

 toward the town and harbor, and it has kept up a more or less successful drifting for many, 

 many years. 



Legislation intended to restrict the careless cutting of the growth has been enacted in vary- 

 ing forms and degrees periodically for the past nearly one hundred years, but while well intended, 

 it generally failed of successful enforcement. 



The National Government was finally appealed to. Appropriations amounting to sixty-three 

 thousand dollars were made and expended in building jetties and bulkheads (which were either 

 buried in sand or carried away by wind and storm), and in the planting of beach-grass, which, 

 it was thought, would make a successful growth and "bind" the sand. This did hold the sand 

 in place for a time, but not receiving constant care and watchfulness, it, too, was in time 

 "blown out" in the more exposed places, and buried many feet deep, where the wind finally 

 deposited the sand. In the interior portions, where the trees were not cut, they have been largely 

 covered and smothered by the sand hills, there being trees now forty feet or more in height with 

 only the tips of their topmost branches visible. 



I was consulted in 1894, and in 1895 work was commenced on the extreme outside dune 

 (there are three of them) in the most exposed part. The bare sand areas, from which the sand 

 was blown inland over a much greater area, was first covered by planting clumps of beach grass 

 [Calamagrostis arenaria) in alternate rows about eighteen inches apart (see the remnants of 

 these rows in picture No. 1), which made a fairly satisfactory growth, and "fixed" the sand 

 by arresting its movement until a stronger or woody growth could be established among it. 



This permanent or woody growth consists of Pinns ?na?'itima, Pinus Austriaca, Pinus rigida, 

 Pinus sylvestris, Quercus rubra and tinctoria, Myrica cerifera, Genista scoparia, etc., which we have 

 found to succeed the best. I have tried many other species, consisting of willows, poplars, 

 thorns, tamarix, etc., but with only partial success. At the beginning of operations we established a 

 nursery on the lands in a sheltered spot, where many thousands of young plants were produced. 



