70 
EASTERN SHADE TREE CONFERENCE 
least from buildings, modern roadbeds and accompanying services. 
Many a tree was blown over or broken in these park-like areas and in 
not a few cases the ball of earth upturned with the roots was remarkably 
small. It has been generally assumed that such trees are growing under 
almost ideal conditions and little thought has been given to the fact that 
in such places there is rarely enrichment of the soil either by systematic 
application or incidentally from the pasturing of animals. This latter 
was common on village greens in earlier days. Fertilizing for the rich, 
shortly clipped sod of today is supposed to provide adequate plant food 
for the trees. The hurricane effects suggest that there may be an error 
in this assumption and that the grass of the lawn takes up most of the 
plant food and prevents much of it from working down to the tree roots. 
Another condition which attracted notice was that for the most part 
damage to shade trees was limited to those 50 to approximately 100 years 
old. The younger trees, those about 40 years of age or less, largely 
escaped storm damage and this was true also of the trees which had 
entered the second or third century of their existence. The reason prob¬ 
ably is that the younger and therefore smaller trees had more vigorous 
root systems and the tops being lower offer less resistance to the winds 
than those in the 50 to 100 year class whereas the older trees were 
mostly growing where conditions were excellent and consequently these 
trees had developed the greater vigor of root and branch necessary to 
storm resistance. It was easy to note here and there giant elms which 
had successfully resisted the storm although lesser trees, not the smaller 
ones, had been seriously damaged. The same storm resistance of larger 
trees was also seen in white pine and Norway spruce. Many of those 
up to approximately 70 years of age were snapped off in areas where 
the storm was most severe while larger and older trees mostly weathered 
the storm. In this particular case, it is our belief that the outer and 
thinner wood rings of the aged trees are tougher than those produced in 
the first 70 years. There are exceptions but they are relatively few. The 
trees in many cemeteries were badly damaged by the storm. This was 
due partly to their being in exposed locations, partly to root injury 
incident to interments and erection of monuments and also to the 
extensive planting in some of the cemeteries of white pines and Norway 
spruce. There was also severe damage in cemetery areas established in 
partly cleared forest due probably to poor root systems as well as to 
digging for graves. 
The uprooting of trees, greatly aided in this storm by excessive and 
