Can Sandhills be Fixed Down by Art

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 26, 18 August 1892, Page 4

Can Sandhills be Fixed Down by Art

The following note is from en 1860 I edition of Boswell's 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Sam-el Johnson, LL.D-' It is worth the attention ot those interested in preserving the sandhills :— " 1 1 is successfully done in the Hebrides, on parts of the English and Welsh coasts, and in Holland, by sowing grasses. Along tbe western shore of the outer range of tbe Hebrides there are large accumulations of shell or calcareous sand thrown up by the sea aud drifted inwards by the wind, which generally blows from the west. This sand-drift did great damage to the more inland portions of the low adjacent grounds, especially in the islands of Harris, North and S >uth Uist, aud Barra, until, about thirty years since, a successful mode of treating the evil was practised by Dr A Alacleod, now of Portree. This consisted in levelling down the steep, broken faces of the sandhills (always looking west or seaward) to a more gentle slope, and then covering the slope with turf or sod cut from the leeward or unbroken part of the sandhills. By this means the indigenous grasses, as sandbent (Arundo armaria), wheatgrass (Triticum junecum), bedstraw (Gallium verum), and others, thus transferred from one portion of their native sand to the other, immediately took root and spread ; while the roots left in the ground where the sods were cut soun shot up and covered the spot with its usual verdure, Such, indeed, is the aptitude of the native roots to creep and vegetate, that where the green turf is scarce it is not necessary to cover tbe slop entirely with sods, but at distances of from twelve to eighteen inches apart. In cases where there are tracts of flat sands utterly devoid of vegetation, and green turf cannot be procured, bent grass is sown in tufts, as seedling firs are planted within a yard or so of each other, and this in few years is found sufficient to arrest the drift, and cover the sandy desert with a luxuriant crop of green bent, which is now found to be a good wintering for sheep. The Highlanders call this species of improvement curing the tnachar banks — niachar being a Gaelic word syni onymous with links in the lowlands of Scotland, or downs in England In Pembrokeshire the sedge (Carexarmaria) is sown on the drifting sandy downs, and effectually answers tiie purpose of binding them, and covering the ground with a close vegetable sward. — Dunedin Star.