birch, in poor, damp, and deep sand; fourth, the chestnut, on rich, damp, and deep sand. The oak is very hardy; in poor soils it is the most productive.

"To conclude, it is not always easy to apply the rules laid down, on account of the varieties of soil; but to ensure success two kinds of deciduous trees should be associated with the pine-for example, the oak and birch.

"Fine coppice woods of chestnut are rare in Sologne, which seems to prove that the soil is unsuitable. Nevertheless, solitary specimens of chesnut trees of great beauty occur, but only in the neighbourhood of the farms, where they have had the benefit of manure and culture. “ The year in which the pines are sown may not always be a good year for acorns. In this case the latter may be pricked in later among the young pines.

"When the pines and acorns are sown at the same time, the acorns are first scattered in furrows, and when the ground is harrowed they are covered to the proper depth. The pine seed is then sown and covered by being slightly harrowed. Chestnuts are sown like acorns. "Birch seed is not sown in Sologne; young plants, three years old, collected in the neighbourhood of the old trees, are preferred."

M. Boitel goes on to say: "Having pointed out the trees to be employed on boisements, we may now consider the respective merits of forests and agriculture as regards the general good.

"It is impossible to bring a poor soil at once into cultivation, and it may be considered as proved beyond a doubt that reboisement is the best way of improving land, and at the same time securing a speedy

return.

"In Sologne, agriculture can only be profitably carried on in certain favoured spots where the soil, argilo-silicious or silicioargillaceous, has been drained and manured; but it is evident that expensive improvements, in which the outlay exceeds the return, can only be carried out on a very small scale in Sologne. A farm of 100 to 150 hectares will only contain 20 or 30 hectares which have been treated in this way.

"It is impossible to establish the relative proportion which ought to exist between agriculture and boisement-local circumstances and the position of the proprietor differ so very much.

"The most experienced men devote to boisement, first, exhausted land which is usually sandy; second, Landes exceptionally poor.

"We have already said that these Landes cannot at once be

changed into forests; but when grubbed out, and subjected to the action of black cattle during two or three years, they yield crops, which repay the expense of grubbing, and which destroy the weeds.

"I have tried boisements on a large scale on the Imperial domains of Sologne. The following is the cost of sowing a hectare of exhausted land :

10 kilogrammes of maritime pine seed

(winged) at 40 cents,

1 kilogramme of Scotch fir seed
(winged) at 3 francs,

...

150 litres of acorns at 3 cents,
50 litres of chestnuts at 5 cents,
Scattering the seed, ...

4 francs 0 cents.

3

0

"The expense of draining, levelling, enclosing, and weeding, varying according to locality, amounts, at the least, to 15 francs per hectare, so that the reboisement of a hectare will cost about 32 francs 50 cents, partly the seed, partly for hand labour. The expense of ploughing and harrowing must be added, but usually this is not great in these sandy soils. Land left in furrows only requires to be harrowed after the seed is scattered.

"This system of boisement is perfect and permanent, and free from risk.

"If the Scots fir does not germinate, which often happens, it should be replaced by the maritime pine, and vice versa. If resinous trees fail, the oak, birch, and chestnut will cover the ground sufficiently.

"Some boisements cost only 4 or 5 francs per hectare instead of 32 francs 50 cents, in which case the seed of the maritime pine is sown along with rye and buckwheat. The seed costs little, and the produce of the mixed culture pays for the ploughing and harrowing. This method has the drawback of risking all on a single tree, which may not succeed. On the other hand, it is to be supposed that the ground is not too far exhausted to be able to produce at least one other crop rye and buckwheat; this is not usually the state of a field abandoned by farmers or small land holders.

of

"The young pineries, called here sapinières, are treated according to the method already described."

In the reclaiming of these Landes of La Sologne, we still find the

maritime pine playing an important part; but it is a subordinate rôle. It is employed here not as the one important culture, but as a means of preparing the soil for the culture of some of the poorer of the cereals, or as a manure to other trees, for the growth of which it has to make way, having secured its purpose, and in doing so exhausted its growth. In this respect, as in others, the Landes of Gascony and the Landes of La Sologne differ greatly; and thus a fuller study of these, more especially in particulars in which they differ from each other, may be desirable.

CHAPTER VIII.

INLAND SAND-WASTES, AND SAND-WASTES ON THE COAST.

THE different conditions of the maritime pine grown on the Landes of Gascony, and of that tree grown on the Landes of La Sologne, indicate that there must be some great difference in the conditions of the sand-wastes themselves; and I deem it of much more importance to have this fact recognised by those who, without previous experience, may contemplate the reclaiming of sand-wastes by sylviculture, than to have the difference referred to precisely specified. All sand-wastes are not alike: there are sand-wastes; and there are sand-wastes ; and there are trees which will grow luxuriantly upon one, which upon another will pine away and die.

Climate has to do with such results as well as soil. Sea air, and saline constituents of the soil, destructive to some trees, may be, like elements, life to others. The mobility of a drifting sand dune on the coast may be a condition of life to one tree, while the comparative fixity of an inland sand-waste may be essential to the growth of another. Something has been gained by the discovery that even the maritime pine, which has produced such wonderful results on the Landes of Gascony and of the Gironde, will not grow everywhere, even on sandwastes in France. And the teaching of this is, that in every case in which it is sought thus to arrest and utilize sand-wastes, the culture must be determined by a special acquaintance with the case.

A previous study of the natural history of sand drifts and sand dunes might facilitate the acquisition of such an acquaintance with any one case as is referred to. But this comes not within the scope of this volume, which is limited to the single chapter of that subject indicated by its title. And it is the appearance presented by plantations on drift sands, and by lands adjacent to the pine plantations in Gascony alone, which have as yet been detailed. Points of similarity and of difference between these sands and the sands of La Sologne have only come before us incidentally.

With the fact before us, however, that there are differences in the conditions of sand-wastes, we may find it satisfactory to advance a little further in the study of these sand-wastes of France, less with a view of ascertaining the difference between the sand-wastes of the coast

L

and those of the interior of France, than with a view to becoming acquainted more extensively with the less superficial conditions of these sand-wastes than those previously detailed, whether common to all or peculiar to certain localities.

According to Herr Wessley, to whose work, entitled Der Europäische Flugsand und Seine Kultur* I have already had occasion to refer, the "Landes" covering 270 German square miles (5,550 English square miles) of the province of Gascony, form the area of the basin of Bordeaux, a triangle bounded by the Atlantic, and formed by the land lying between the lower portion of the beds of the Garonne and of the Adour.

On the coast are the "Landes Sauvages," or coast dunes, covering an area of 19 German square miles, (nearly 400 English square miles), which, through drifting, have extended to a breadth which is unusual, and thereby has it frequently happened that the river courses far inland have been stopped up, and thus, through their waters penetrating into the Kehlen, or bared grooves, and hollows amongst the dunes, which cover more than half the land, have these waters been converted into lagoons and marshes.

The inland portion of the "Landes" forms a kind of plain from 250 to 300 feet above the level of the sea, an extensive sand heath covered with dunes, very much cut up, and of a composition so unfavourable to vegetation that in many parts it is throughout the year perfectly barren. It is only of late, as he says, that by extensive sylviculture, chiefly of the maritime pine, a considerable extent of forest has been produced, following mainly the water courses, and thereby a better produce from the land has been obtained.

The superficial covering of these heaths is composed principally of a very poor sand, devoid alike of clay and lime from 1.9 to 2.5 feet in depth, resting on an impenetrable under stratum, from 11 to 15 inches in thickness, which consists of sand cemented by calcareous and vegetable matter and is almost identical with the so-called German "Ortstein." Under this stratum of ortstein again lies sand, and although in some places they have dug to a depth of 63 feet the lower extremity of this sand layer has not been reached.

In the summer season there is neither spring nor brook to be seen in these Landes. In the winter, however, being so near the sea, there is a plentiful fall of rain; and formerly, because of the little slope of

*Vienna: Fraesy and Freck. 1873.