IOWA ACADEMY OF SCLENCES. 65 



upright shed the water and sleet well and were not greatly 

 injured, while tliose which grew in a slanting position or were 

 gnarled and straggling in their growth, did not shed it so well 

 and consequently received greater injury. Limbs growing in 

 a horizontial position were soon weighted down and broken 

 while those more nearly vertical were saved. 



In the native timber much damage was done and many trees 

 were ruined, but the damage was not nearly so great as in the 

 artificial groves, owing, doubtless, to the fact that the native 

 timber tends naturally to grow in the best sheltered places 

 and in such a manner as to protect itself, while, of the artificial 

 groves, many are planted in exposed positions and in such a 

 manner as to offer little resistance to a storm of this kind. In 

 many of these groves the trees have been planted so close as 

 to mutually choke each other, and consequently show a 

 tendency to grow very tall, with a thin, spindling trunk and no 

 branches lower than twenty or thirty feet from the ground. 

 Wherever this condition prevails the damage done by the 

 storm was very great. Throughout these groves we may 

 see any number of shattered and maimed trees — evidences of 

 the fact that the stunted trunks were unable to support the 

 heavy masses of sleet which hung to the limbs. Trees which 

 had distanced their comrades in the struggle for light and air 

 by pushing up some distance above them suffered most 

 severely and were almost invariably either broken off short or 

 lost many limbs The fact that most of the artificial groves 

 are of soft maple trees also goes far to explain the great dam- 

 age which they sustained. 



Trees growing in the open, as a rule, showed a better and 

 stronger development than those in groves, and, hence, better 

 ability to resist the storm. 



In the case of most groves there is a very evident tendency 

 on the part of the trees to lean toward the northeast — a ten- 

 dency which has never been very satisfactorily accounted for, 

 but is usually credited to the prevailing southwest wind of 

 summer. This fact was emphasized by the results of the 

 storm. An examination of almost any grove which suffered 

 from the storm would reveal the fact that the greatest damage 

 was done on the north and east sides and that, as a rule, the 

 broken trunks and branches fell outward, while on the south 

 and west they fell inward, or toward the center of the grove. 



