REMOVAL OF DUNES—INLAND SAND PLAINS. 509 
ers the old stocks. As fast as buried, they send out new roots 
near the surface, and thus the vineyard is constantly renewed, 
and has always a youthful appearance, though it may have 
been already planted a couple of generations. This practice is 
ascertained to have been followed for two centuries, and is 
among the oldest well-authenticated attempts of man to resist 
and vanquish the dunes.* 
Removal of Dunes. 
The artificial removal of dunes, no longer necessary as a 
protection, does not appear to have been practised upon a large 
scale except in the Netherlands, where the numerous canals 
furnish an easy and economical means of transporting the 
sand, and where the construction and maintenance of sea and 
river dikes, and of causeways and other embankments and 
fillings, create a great demand for that material. Sand is also 
employed in Holland, in large quantities, for improving the 
consistence of the tough clay bordering upon or underlying 
diluvial deposits, and for forming an artificial soil for the 
growth of certain garden and ornamental vegetables. When 
the dunes are removed, the ground they covered is restored to 
the domain of industry; and the quantity of land, recovered 
in the Netherlands by the removal of the barren sands which 
encumbered it, amounts to hundreds and perhaps thousands of 
acres. 
Inland Sand Plains. 
The inland sand plains of Europe are either derived from 
the drifting of dunes or other beach sands, or consist of diluvial 
deposits. As we have seen, when once the interior of a dune 
is laid open to the wind, its contents are soon scattered far and 
wide over the adjacent country, and the beach sands, no longer 
checked by the rampart which nature had constrained them to 
build against their own encroachments, are also carried to con- 
* Boitel, Mise en raleur des Terres pauvres par le Pin maritime , pp. 
212 , 218 . 
