Landes

a French word meaning heaths. It is applied to extensive tracts on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, between the Gironde and the Pyrenees. It is one of the least fertile districts in Europe. The soil is sandy. Vegetation is scanty, consisting chiefly of heath and dwarf shrubs. There are, however, considerable plantations of fir and cork trees. The inhabitants are an active, hospitable race, known as Gascons. The country is commonly tributary to Bordeaux. The inhabitants live chiefly by fishing, hunting, keeping of bees, swine, and sheep. The exports are charcoal, cork, turpentine, resin, and pitch. Wooden shoes are manufactured here. The Landes are remembered by the schoolboy as a region in which sheep are tended by peasants mounted on tall stilts, by means of which they get over the country with wonderful rapidity.