XXI. THE ICE-COAT ON THE TREES 
“First there came down a thawing rain 
And its dull drops froze on the boughs again; 
Then there steamed up a freezing dew 
Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew; 
And a northern whirlwind, wandering about 
Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, 
Shook the boughs thus laden and heavy and stiff, 
And snapped them off with his rigid griff.” 
—Shelley (The Sensitive Plant). 
Winter imposes some hard conditions upon tree life. In 
the ‘frozen north”’ there are no trees; and in our temperate 
clime there are only those that are able to withstand a long 
period of inactivity, a succession of freezings and thawings, 
and the heavy mechanical stresses imposed by high winds 
and snow and ice. The majority of our woody plants have 
met the difficulties of the situation by dropping their leaves 
on the approach of winter. Most of the tall conifers have 
adjusted themselves to bear winter’s white burden. While 
retaining their leaves, they spread their branches horizontally 
in whorls around a single ax's, and when the snow bends 
them, the higher branches rest upon the lower from top to 
bottom in mutual support. As John Burroughs poetically 
puts it, “The white pine and all its tribe look winter cheerily 
in the face, tossing the snow, masquerading in arctic livery, in 
fact, holding high carnival from fall to spring.” 
The severest test of the strength of a tree comes not from 
snow, but from ice; it comes not when the weather is coldest, 
but when there has been a thaw, and the thermometer is 
hovering around the freezing point. When the air is full of 
moisture, and the trees have been suddenly cooled by radia- 
tion, the water freezes to them, completely encasing them in 
ice. This usually happens toward nightfall; and if it con- 
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