64 IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCES. 



wind at the time was slightly west of north and was not blow- 

 ing at all briskly. The day preceding the storm had been 

 unusually warm, for the time of year, with a cloudy sky, a 

 slight breeze from the north and a very humid atmosphere. 

 About 3 o'clock on the morning of the 10th the trees, which 

 had become heavily laden with ice, began to break. Had there 

 been a heavy wind at the time, the damage to the trees would 

 have been immense; as it was, the damage was very great and 

 in the town of Greenfield the people were very generally 

 awakened by the crashing of the breaking trees, which lasted 

 almost continuously from 8 o'clock until daylight. Morning 

 revealed the immense damage which had been done to the 

 shade trees of the town. Most of these are soft maples and 

 had yielded readily to the weight "of ice, so that a large pro- 

 portion of them were damaged and some were quite ruined. 

 Owing to the stillness of the air the ice adhered about equally 

 to all sides of the trees and, on trees of straight growth, the 

 breakage was equal on the different sides. 



The damage wrought by the storm was most severe on the 

 soft maple trees, owing to the softness of their wood. Next, 

 after them, the willows probably suffered most. In many 

 places in the county willow hedges by the roadside were bent 

 over until the trees nearly touched the ground and numbers of 

 the trees were either broken short off or lost many of their 

 branches. Hedges running east and west were worse affected 

 than those running north and south, owing to the general 

 tendency of the trees to bend toward the north. Hence in 

 the former case the trees, having no support, were broken 

 down by the ice, while, in the latter, they rested upon each 

 other to some extent, and were saved from breakage. Box 

 elder trees were badly damaged and elms were damaged almost 

 as badly. Some handsome box elder trees in the town of 

 Greenfield were almost ruined. A handsome weeping willow 

 tree in Greenfield was literally stripped of all its smaller 

 branches, not one being left unbroken. The accompanying 

 illustration was taken of it just after the removal of the broken 

 branches and may give some idea of how thoroughly the storm 

 did its work. Oak, walnut and hickory trees resisted the ice 

 well and were largely uninjured by it. Cottonwood trees 

 suffered severely. 



The amount of damage done to trees was largely determined 

 by their position and habit of growth. Trees which grew 



