MARCH WINDS 



them down, the racking of varying force 

 and the torsion of sudden changes in di- 

 rection will snap the weakened trunk or 

 tear out the loosened roots. Then there 

 is a groan and a crash, and space for the 

 younger growth to spread toward more 

 light and air: 



At no time of year is the weakness of 

 roothold so liable to be fatal to a tree 

 as now. During the winter a gale may 

 snap a tree off at the trunk and smash 

 it bodily to the ground. But if there is 

 no weakness in the trunk there can be 

 none in the roots, for the frost that is 

 set about them holds even the shortest, as 

 if embedded in stone. But now, when the 

 solvent ice has loosened the whole surface 

 for a depth of a foot or more, leaving it 

 fluffy and disintegrated, those trees which 

 have no tap-roots and hold only in this 

 lightened surface are in the greatest 

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