INJURIOUS INFLUENCE OIT THE ELEMENTS. 133 



can be done, the big rampant ice-cakes from entering the 

 overflown copse- wood and destroying its tree-growth. 



Heavy snowfalls do much more harm than rain to for- 

 est trees, especially to the conifers, as most of them 

 retain during the winter a thick growth of leaves which 

 form a substantial bed for the snow. But in moun- 

 tain regions snow falls sometimes in October or Novem- 

 ber when the deciduous trees have not yet thrown off 

 their foliage, and then these trees are also liable to be 

 hurt by snow. 



Snow acts most perniciously when falling in large 

 flakes upon the branches of the trees while they are 

 frozen on the outside. The flakes then accumulate upon 

 the branches and twigs in such quantities that the tops 

 of the trees form a nearly unbroken mass of ice, which 

 weighs down the trees and sometimes destroys entire 

 groves. The most approved safeguard against this oc- 

 currence consists of (1) a properly made thinning, to- 

 gether with a somewhat wider planting than is usual in 

 plantations, and (2) the dividing up of the forest, with- 

 out interfering with its compactness, into smaller tracts, 

 separated by avenues or paths from 10 to 12 feet wide, 

 laid out, if possible, so that the principal rain and snow- 

 storms strike the paths crosswise and not in the direc- 

 tion of their length. See page 60, note. In restocking 

 denuded woodlands planting is also for the same reason 

 to be preferred to seeding as in the latter case an over- 

 crowded condition of the seedlings can seldom be avoided. 

 This is particularly true when pines and spruces are re- 

 produced by seeding. 



Woods in which conifers grow mixed with foliaged 

 trees are less exposed to damages by snowdrifts, because 

 they do not present an even surface, but one which is in- 

 terrupted at the places where the defoliated trees stand. 

 The snow settles then all around the naked deciduous 

 trees without hurting them, and is in a great part pre- 



