Beach Grass

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

a stout, rigid grass with firm running root-stalks and long, stiff, leaf blades. There are two species only; one in America, the other in Europe. It is a coarse, perennial, maritime species, with a dense cylindrical head, more slender and irregular than that of timothy. It is found on sandy beaches along the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast, and in similar situations throughout Europe. Beach grass is of great economic importance. Its roots seek what little moisture it requires at great depths. Its manner of growth is such that it is able to maintain its hold in drifting sands where no other plant can live. Unless the wind piles the sand altogether too deep, the beach grass climbs year by year and reestablishes itself. It is of inestimable benefit, both in binding sand barrens so that the wind cannot blow them away, and in stopping sand that is drifting or sliding along before the wind . So important is this service that governments both abroad and at home have spent large sums of money in protecting and establishing beach grass. Massachusetts has had laws since 1740 forbidding its destruction by close pasturing. Between 1830 and 1840 the Commonwealth expended $30,000 in transplanting this grass in the Cape Cod district. One thousand four hundred acres of drifting sand were bound down. The state has since expended many times that sum. Local taxation and private effort have brought up the total expense. The cranberry raisers have also united to spend money in setting out beach grass, lest the drifting sands fill their marshes. The work must be done by hand. In the autumn or spring, the grass is dug up with spades where it can be spared, and is taken in bundles to where it is to be planted. One man thrusts a spade deeply into the ground, working the handle back and forth to make a V-shaped opening. An assistant thrusts the rootstalks of three or four stalks into the hole. The first workman drives his spade into the sand two or three inches from the first position, and pries the soil against the roots. They then step forward and repeat the operation. The plantings are made about twenty inches apart, care being taken not to form rows, as the wind would then be apt to sweep through the lanes and scour out ditches, eventually uprooting the grass and carrying the entire surface away. Similar transplanting is practiced in Europe. For a further account, see DUNES.