METHODS OF PEE VENTING DRIFTING SAND. 59 



Methods of "preventing drifting and reclamation of waste dunes. — 

 Although the above-named and other native plants grow freely on the 

 dunes, no one of them proves thoroughly satisfactory as a check to 

 sand encroachment. Almost all of these species grow so slowly and 

 so sparsely as to allow the sand to blow away from their roots, which 

 die on exposure. They are, moreover, too dwarfed in stature to check 

 the drifts successfully. Therefore, if the drifting is to be checked 

 and the waste dune areas are to be made useful, it is necessary to 

 remedy this defect. The first point to be gained is to render the sur- 

 face as nearly stable as possible, in order that useful plants may have 

 a place on which to grow. For this purpose the cultivation of certain 

 selected sand-binding plants has been adopted, in Europe and in the 

 Eastern States, as being the cheapest and most satisfactory means of 

 checking and reclaiming drift sands. The following are considered 

 the most satisfactory sand binders: 



Beach grass (Amm,ophila arenaria) (Plate VII) was introduced at 

 Point Arena some ten years ago by Mr. Sheppard, a few plants having 

 been obtained from the commissioners of Golden Gate Park, San 

 Francisco, who had successfully used it at that place (PL VIII, fig. 2). 



It has thriven admirably at Point Arena, and now covers about an 

 acre of the dunes. This grass is by far the best sand binder tried on 

 the California coast, its dense growth, long under-ground stems, and 

 long tufts of leaves preventing the sand from blowing away from the 

 roots. Moreover, the banking up of sand does not in any way injure 

 the plant, which continues to lengthen its stem and throw out new 

 roots as fast as the sand piles up around it. Professor Scribner states 

 that "a plant will, by gradual growth upward, finally form stems and 

 roots sanded in to the depth of fully 100 feet." 



Beach grass is most successfully propagated by transplanting in the 

 autumn. Vigorous plants are selected and pulled up by hand. Usu- 

 ally a bundle of half a dozen plants is held together by one man, while 

 another makes a hole in the sand. This hole should be 18 inches deep, 

 and is made with a long spade or shovel which is forced into the sand 

 and then pressed forward, making an opening into which the beach- 

 grass roots are thrust; the spade is then withdrawn and the sand 

 pressed close about the roots. The grass is not planted in rows, but 

 in quincunx, or irregular order, 1 and 2^ feet apart, according to the 

 slope. a In California the planting should be done in the early fall, as 

 the growth of roots is greater at that season, and the chances of suc- 

 cess are consequently increased. Moreover this gives the plants the 

 full benefit of warm soil, and of the whole season's rainfall. If sown 

 in the spring, there is danger of the 3 7 oung plants drying out or burn- 

 ing up during the summer months. On the California coast the sow- 



a Scribner, F. L. Economic Grasses; U. S. Dept. Agric., Div. Agros., Bui. 14. 

 1898: Scribner, F. L. Sand-binding Grasses; reprint from Yearbook Depart. 



Agric. 1898. 



