SAND DUNES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2218, 21 December 1920, Page 2

SAND DUNES.

TREATMENT IN FRANCE,

INFORMATION FOR NEW ZEALANDERS.'

Thc treatment of sand dunes in France, where tens of •thousands of acres of waste land have been made prolitable, is the subject of a pamphlet that lias been issued by the Government Printing Office. The work is a translation of a report by a French expert, M. Edouard Hario.

The success of the work in Gascony has been the result of operations which-dwere commenced in 1787, and which were continued over many years. The result, has been the afforestation in valuable resinous and timber-producing pines of thousands of acres of sandy wastes, the financial yield to the Stale being very considerable. The trees, in (urn, have prevented the encroachment of the wind-blown sands, and have afforded protection for extensive cultivation.

It seems from accounts given by the French writer that in (lie early stages of the work long lines of pali-' sading, on a particular system, were .erected on the seaward side of the dunes. As these collected the sands, they were raised again and again. The result has been largo protecting seaward dunes which now fringe the littoral. The sowing of the fiats and dunes was with approved quantities of pine seed, broom seed, and marram- grass seed, the last-men-tioned being added when the dimes were very unstable and exposed. The seeds were spread separately, and quite uniformly, and were 'immediately covered over with brushwood to prevent them being blown together, or scattered, by the wind. The pine used was the maritime pine (pinus pinaster), and (lie broom the brush broom (sarothaiunus scoparius). Gorse seed was often added. -The pine in its first growth was protected by the other plants. .Much importance was at--Inched to the quantities used and. the methods of sowing. The seed was immediately covered with boughs trimmed famvise, ‘Tike the branehlets of trees on opposite brunches.” To this end all twigs above or below, which-would prevent the branches lying quite fiat on the soil, had to be cut off. It was of the utmost importance that the branches should lie fiat, on the ground to prevent the wind lifting them, and they were to he placed across the track of prevailing winds as offering a better protection to the young plants. Where necessary, a' few shqyels of sand were thrown on to weight them down.