574 



CHAPTER VII. 



PROTECTION AGAINST RIME.* 

 A. General Account of Damage. 



RIME and ice may incrust and overlade stems, crowns and 

 branches, and thus break or uproot trees. Eime, unless 

 accompanied by snow, seldom seriously damages trees, but 

 this is not the case with ice, and when this is followed by 

 snow and a stiff gale, forests may suffer very considerably. 



The damage done resembles that effected by storms and 

 snow. 



B. Damage under Special Conditions. 



a. Species. 



Coniferous woods suffer more than broadleaved woods. 

 Scots pine and other pines suffer most, then spruce, silver-fir 

 and ktrch. If larch be covered with needles, it may suffer 

 more than spruce. 



In broadleaved woods, poplars, willows, alder and robinia, 

 on account of their brittle wood, are most endangered, but as 

 these trees are not extensively grown, their damage is not 

 very important. The beech, on account of its dense foliage, 

 suffers considerably. Oaks and birch, in leaf, also suffer 

 greatly. 



b. Afje of Crop. 



Whilst damage by snow chiefly affects thickets and young 

 pole-woods, ice and rime will do more damage to middle-aged 

 and even mature woods. Scots pine and larch-woods thirty to 

 sixty years old and beech-woods from forty to eighty years 

 are most liable to injury. Pole- woods are generally bent, but 

 may be sometimes crushed by the weight of ice they bear, as 



* Vide "Notes on Hoar Frost " : C. B. Plowright, "Journal of K. Hort. Soc." 

 March, 1891. 



