MARCH. 65 



were interlocked, and several so shaken and wormed about 

 that the closely wrapping poison ivy was detached — an oc- 

 currence I should never have dreamed could have taken 

 place. Where branches were broken, they were, as a rule, 

 detached from the trunk of the tree as though seized at 

 their extremities and twisted ofE. Although the wind 

 remained in one direction, it evidently became a whirl- 

 wind among the tree-tops, as shown by the direction of 

 fall of several large limbs. One large branch of an enor- 

 mous beech was broken off, but still holds by long cables 

 of twisted strips of bark, as though the storm had re- 

 pented and tried to repair the damage by tying it on 

 again. 



Of the several species of trees I have mentioned, no 

 two are of like toughness in the texture of their wood, and 

 in this storm the weaker and more brittle kinds did not 

 sufEer as much as the tough old oaks. Nor were the de- 

 tached branches worm-eaten, and so abnormally weak. I , 

 was confronted with contradictions whichever way I 

 turned. Associate these with wind having a velocity of 

 fifty-four miles an hour and air full of sand-like snow, 

 and realize how easily one could become bewildered. ' 



In the more exposed upland fields not a tree suffered, 

 the big sassafras, sixty-two feet in height, not losing even 

 a twig. Stranger still, the scattered beeches and white 

 oaks that have retained their withered leaves all winter 

 hold them still. In short, the home woods suffered very 

 little, and what damage there is, occurred where I least 

 expected to find it. Where the exposure was greatest, 

 there every tree successfully weathered one of the severest 

 storms on record. The shrubbery, seedling oaks and 

 beeches, puny cedars, and trim little junipers were bent to 

 the ground and remained prostrate for three or four days. 

 The snow has now melted, and all are again erect ; but 

 when I bent some of them to-day as flatly as did the 

 6 



