The desert of Maine

Did you know about this!?

The land that encompasses the Desert of Maine became a farm in 1821 when it was purchased by the Tuttle family. Like other Maine farmers of the era who were struggling to compete in an expanding agricultural market, the Tuttles' methods of farming gradually depleted the soil of essential nutrients. Subsequent overgrazing by large numbers of sheep produced widespread erosion of the topsoil, exposing a deposit of aeolian sand that was lying underneath.[2] Eventually the entire farm became barren, and the Tuttles abandoned the land in 1890. For years, it was known as "the sand farm" and was a popular local feature.[3] In 1925, Henry Goldrup purchased the land for US$300 (equivalent to about $5,400 in 2024) and developed it into a tourist attraction;[2] he named it the "Desert of Maine".[4]

It is a tourist attraction now. Do they have to actively keep the forest at bay? Or is it really a permanent desert? Other farmers in the area surely used the same practices, but only one spot remains barren?

What gives?

Hmm... Aeolian sand, suppose that means windborne. Maybe it moves around too much for tree seedlings to establish? Or maybe the trampling from hordes of tourists has replaced the overgrazing from sheep?

It looks like it'd be a great nesting place for solitary bees, assuming no gick is used to keep the trees away and there are some flowers in the vicinity. Years ago, Nature and Youth in Sweden had a yearly tradition they called "Bee football", where they played football (soccer) in a sandy area somewhat like this, in order to keep some sand exposed for the bees to nest in.

After over a hundred years it is still barren.  What a shame.

It is almost unbelievable that farming practices could do that.

It's happened in many places. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was a result of sodbusting. In China, the Loess Plateau was stripped of its grassland and cultivated for grain, and the same thing followed. If I head to the beaches west of my place, I pass through a large area of low dunes and you can see lots of blowouts in spots where road scars or overgrazing have "skinned" a dune. Once the root network is gone, the topsoil follows and after that the sand just gets up and goes.