PROTECTION OE DUNES. 
501 
well only in a saline atmosphere.* The arundo grows to the 
height of about twenty-four inches, but sends its strong roots 
with their many rootlets to a distance of forty or fifty feet. It 
has the peculiar property of flourishing best in the loosest soil, 
and a sand shower seems to refresh it as the rain revives the 
thirsty plants of the common earth. Its roots bind together the 
dunes, and its leaves protect their surface. When the sand 
ceases to drift, the arundo dies, its decaying roots fertilizing 
the sand, and the decomposition of its leaves forming a layer 
of vegetable earth over it. Then follows a succession of other 
plants which gradually fit the sand hills, by growth and decay, 
for forest planting, for pasturage, and sometimes for ordinary 
agricultural use. 
But the protection and gradual transformation of the dunes 
is not the only service rendered by this valuable plant. Its 
leaves are nutritious food for sheep and cattle, its seeds for 
poultry ; f cordage and netting twine are manufactured from 
its fibres, it makes a good material for thatching, and its dried 
roots furnish excellent fuel. These useful qualities, unfortu¬ 
nately, are too often prejudicial to its growth. The peasants 
feed it down with their cattle, cut it for rope making, or dig it 
up for fuel, and it has been found necessary to resort to severe 
legislation to prevent them from bringing ruin upon them¬ 
selves by thus improvidently sacrificing their most effectual 
safeguard against the drifting of the sands.$ 
In 1539, a decree of Christian III, king of Denmark, im¬ 
posed a fine upon persons convicted of destroying certain spe¬ 
cies of sand plants upon the west coast of Jutland. This ordi¬ 
nance was renewed and made more comprehensive in 1558, 
* There is some confusion in the popular use of these names, and in 
the scientific designations of sand plants, and they are possibly applied to 
different plants in different places. Some writers style the gourbet Cala- 
magrostis arenaria, and distinguish it from the Danish Klittetag or Hjelme. 
f Bread, not indeed very palatable, has been made of the seeds of the 
arundo. but the quantity which can be gathered is not sufficient to form an 
important economical resource.— Andeesen, Oni Klitformationen, p. 160. 
| Bergsoe, Reventlovs Virksomhed , ii, p. 4. 
