IOWA ACADEMY OP SCffiNCES. 
65 
upright shed the water and sleet well and were not greatly 
injured, while those 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 1 1 grow very tall, with a thin, spindling trunk and no 
branches .ower 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 whic 1 they sustained. 
Treet g-rowing in the open, as a rule, showed a better and 
stronger development than those in groves, and, hence, better 
ability tc resist the storm. 
In the '.ase of most groves there is a very evident tendency 
on the ]c of the trees to lean toward the northeast — a ten- 
dency A ich has never been very satisfactorily accounted for, 
but is a^sially 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 tin storm would reveal the fact that the greatest damage 
was don on the north and east sides and that, as a rule, the 
broken o. unks and branches fell outward, while on the south 
and ;vest they fell inward, or toward the center of the grove. 
5 
