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Chap. XLV. PRODUCE OF SANDY SOIL. 221
scattered on the sandy road to prevent the cart-wheels
sinking into the ruts, a most admirable arrangement,
and not an expensive one ; it proved to be that of the
sand-reed,* with which the dunes are planted, serving
the double purpose of binding the sand-hills and
improving the roads.
The land in the neighbourhood of this village is in
good cultivation. People talk a great deal of nonsense
about “sandy soil, nothing will grow in it;” everything
almost seems to flourish in it if tried. The evergreen
oak, the fig, the mulberry, prefer it; the buckwheat,
corn, and rye thrive; and as for the potato-fields, it is
a pleasure to look at them. The only manure here
used in quantity is the dog-fish and other coarse fish
cast upon the strand or taken in the nets of the
fishers.
It was an eight miles’ drive to Sønderbo, a village
more Dutch-like in its character even than its sister:
the houses have a peculiar, neat, trim appearance, and
the gardens, each of them surrounded by a hedge of
what people in England call the “tea-plant,” which
thrives here to perfection, and resists the fury of the
wind—whose leaves, may be, furnished the beverage
supplied for our breakfast this morning.
Most of the houses are decorated with figure-heads,
some with very antique carvings, relics of ill-fated ships
wrecked off this most inhospitable coast.
I looked in at some of the cottage doors. The
interiors responded to the rest of the building—a grand
display of crockery—old Delft plates—and in the
centre of each rack, shining bright as gilded gold,
* Arundo arenaria.
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