Dune Vineyards of Cap Breton

In the vicinity of Cap Breton in France, a peculiar process is successfully employed, both for preventing the drifting of dunes, and for rendering the sands themselves immediately productive; but this method is applicable only in exceptional cases of favorable climate and exposure. It consists in planting vineyards upon the dunes, and protecting them by hedges of broom, Erica scoparia, so disposed as to form rectangles about thirty feet by forty. The vines planted in these enclosures thrive admirably, and the grapes produced by them are among the best grown in France. The dunes are so far from being an unfavorable soil for the vine, that fresh sea-sand is regularly employed as a fertilizer for it, alternating every other season with ordinary manure. The quantity of sand thus applied every second year, raises the surface of the vineyard about four or five inches. The vines are cut down every year to three or four shoots, and the raising of the soil rapidly covers 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.