1893, the fourth that of May 20, 1894. 
On all of these occasions special attention 
was called to the injury wrought to vegeta- 
tion, but it is doubtful if there has been, in 
the memory of anyone now living, such havoe 
and destruction in connection with our trees, 
as that which was caused by the ice storm of 
February 21st of this year. Similar storms 
have occured nearly every winter, but never 
before did the accumulation of ice on the trees 
reach such magnitude or produce the disastr- 
ous results that ensued from this one. 
The storm conditions began early in the 
morning with a fall of phenomenally large 
snow flakes, which turned to rain and finally 
to sleet. Every exposed object became grad- 
ually encased in aconstantly increasing thick- 
ness of ice and finally, about nightfall, the 
overburdened trees began to give way. Near- 
ly alJ lost a greater or less number of their 
branches or limbs, many had their tops broken 
off, others were split where forked and some 
were laid prostrate on the vround. 
The general effect is known only too well 
to all of us, but perhaps all are not familiar 
with some of the details. For example, the 
actual weight of ice was probably unpre- 
cedented and fortunatelya friend of mine 
made an experiment which will enable us to 
appreciate, at least approximately, what this 
amounted to. A section of a branch with its 
coating of ice was found to weigh 43 Ibs. 
After the ice had melted the section weighed 
a fraction overt lb Ifthis ratio could be 
accepted as that which prevailed throughout, 
then each tree was burdened with about four 
times its own weight of ice It should be re- 
membered however that this ratio would vary 
with the thickness of the branch, so that the 
weight of ice compared to the weight of wood 
in anentire tree wouid be proportionally 
much less than indicated by the experiment, 
Nevertheless this gives a striking idea of the 
weight to which the smaller branches had 
either to adjust themselves or to yield. 
Evergreens suffered less than deciduous 
trees, probably for the reason that their 
foliage prevented the ice toa certain extent 
from reaching the inner branches. The 
slender tops of cedars were broken however 
in many instances and open, spreading trees, 
like the white pines, suffered considerably. 
Trees growing close together were able to 
support each other more or less and in con- 
sequence our wooded tracts do not present 
quite as great a scene of destruction in pro- 
portion to the number of their trees, as may 
be noticed in connection with the more 
isolated shade and fruit trees along our road- 
sides and near our dwellings although in 
certain areas, where trees specially liable to 
destruction occur in abundance, the effects 
are more marked. An instance of this kind 
may be noticed in connection with the 
splendid growth of beech trees on the shore 
of Clove Lake, where the devastation is al- 
most complete. 
Staten Island felt the effects of the storm 
toa far greater extent than either Manhattan 
or the Bronx, where comparatively little 
damage was occasioned. Inthe New York 
Botanical Garden, Bronx Park, all the ice 
had disappeared from the trees by the middle 
of the day of Feb. 23rd, but here scarcely any 
difference could be noticed until a day later 
Mr. Wm. T, Davis read the following 
NOTE ON THE ICE STORM OF JANUARY 21, 
1881. 
The severe ice storm of February 21st, 
which caused such destruction among the 
trees of the Isiand, particularly the white 
maples, lindens, tulips and sassafrasses (the 
last kind being the most damaged of all),. 
was considered by many people to be ex- 
ceptional, and the ‘‘oldest inhabitant” in 
several districts, said that we hadn’t had the 
like before. The following note on the ice 
storm of January 2Ist, r881, made by me at 
the time, will show however that it was at 
least quite similar, 
“The rain, which fell fast during the early 
morning, froze as soon as it struck a solid 
body. The consequence was that the trees 
were covered with ice about one third to one 
half of an inch in thickness, making them 
both brittle and heavy. ‘The wind then blew 
a gale from the south east, causing branches 
to break off on every tree, Beside our house 
there is a large white maple, about sixty feet 
high, which has lost its top and most promi- 
nent side branches, some of them being from 
