The Desert of Maine is a 40-acre (160,000 m) tract of exposed glacial silt (a sand-like substance, but not actually sand) in a pine forest in the town of Freeport, Maine, in the United States. It originated when the Tuttle family farmed the site from 1797. Failure to rotate crops, combined with land clearance and overgrazing, led to soil erosion, exposing a dune of sand-like glacial silt. The initial exposed small patch of sand gradually spread and overtook the entire farm.