64 
IOWA ACADEMY OF 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 3 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 whlow 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 w^ere 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 
