The Landes of Gascony

The most remarkable sand plain of France lies at the southwestern extremity of the empire, and is generally known as the Landes, or heaths, of Gascony. Clavé thus describes it: "Composed of pure sand, resting on an impermeable stratum called alios, the soil of the Landes was, for centuries, considered incapable of cultivation. Parched in summer, drowned in winter, it produced only ferns, rushes, and heath, and scarcely furnished pasturage for a few half-starved flocks. To crown its miseries, this plain was continually threatened by the encroachments of the dunes. Vast ridges of sand, thrown up by the waves, for a distance of more than fifty leagues along the coast, and continually renewed, were driven inland by the west wind, and, as they rolled over the plain, they buried the soil and the hamlets, overcame all resistance, and advanced with fearful regularity. The whole province seemed devoted to certain destruction, when Brémontier invented his method of fixing the dunes by plantations of the maritime pine."

Although the Landes had been almost abandoned for ages, they show numerous traces of ancient cultivation and prosperity, and it is principally by means of the encroachments of the sands that they have become reduced to their present desolate condition. The destruction of the coast towns and harbors, which furnished markets for the products of the plains, the damming up of the rivers, and the obstruction of the smaller channels of natural drainage by the advance of the dunes, were no doubt very influential causes; and if we add the drifting of the sea sand over the soil, we have at least a partial explanation of the decayed agriculture and diminished population of this great waste. When the dunes were once arrested, and the soil to the east of them was felt to be secure against invasion by them, experiments, in the way of agricultural improvement, by drainage and plantation, were commenced, and they have been attended with such signal success, that the complete recovery of one of the dreariest and most extensive wastes in Europe may be considered as both a probable and a near event.