502 
DUNES OF DENMARK. 
and in 1569 tlie inhabitants of several districts were required, 
by royal rescript, to do their best to check the sand drifts, 
though the specific measures to be adopted for that purpose 
are not indicated. Various laws against stripping the dunes 
of their vegetation were enacted in the following century, but 
no active measures were taken for the subjugation of the sand 
drifts until 1779, when a preliminary system of operation for 
that purpose was adopted. This consisted in little more than 
the planting of the Arundo avenaria and other sand plants, 
and the exclusion of animals destructive to these vegetables.* 
* Measures were taken for the protection of the dunes of Cape Cod, in 
Massachusetts, during the colonial period, though I believe they are now 
substantially abandoned. A hundred years ago, before the valley of the 
Mississippi, or even the rich plains of Central and Western New York, 
were opened to the white settler, the value of land was relatively much 
greater in New England than it is at present, and consequently some rural 
improvements were then worth making, which would not now yield suffi¬ 
cient returns to tempt the investment of capital. The money and the time 
required to subdue and render productive twenty acres of sea sand on Cape 
Cod, would buy a “ section ” and rear a family in Illinois. The son of the 
Pilgrims, therefore, abandons the sand hills, and seeks a better fortune on 
the fertile prairies of the West. 
Dr. Dwight, who visited Cape Cod in the year 1800, after describing 
the “ beach grass, a vegetable bearing a general resemblance to sedge, but 
of a light bluish-green, and of a coarse appearance,” which “flourishes 
with a strong and rapid vegetation on the sands,” observes that he received 
“from a Mr. Collins, formerly of Truro, the following information:” 
“ When he lived at Truro, the inhabitants were, under the authority of 
law, regularly warned in the month of April, yearly, to plant beach grass, 
as, in other towns of New England, they are warned to repair highways. 
It was required by the laws of the State, and under the proper penalties 
for disobedience ; being as regular a public tax as any other. The people, 
therefore, generally attended and performed the labor. The grass was dug 
in bunches, as it naturally grows ; and each hunch divided into a number 
of smaller ones. These were set out in the sand at distances of three feet. 
After one row was set, others were placed behind it in such a manner as to 
shut up the interstices; or, as a carpenter would say, so as to break the 
joints. * * * When it is once set, it grows and spreads with rapidity. 
* * * The seeds are so heavy that they bend down the heads of the 
grass; and when ripe, drop directly down by its side, where they imme¬ 
diately vegetate. Thus in a short time the ground is covered. 
