s them,
skewering the interstices of the crystals on their needle points.
The first real flakes of this storm showed as soon on the top
tassels of these young pines as they did in the bare fields.

As the storm progressed, the lower needles of the spike caught
such as got by the filled tops and soon all the needles of the
young trees were filled with fluffy white snow, until the trees
from tip to butt were no longer green but white, most royally
robed in spotless purity. There was no soot in this whiteness, all
that the air held had been swept from it by the very first of the
storm. No cherry tree in the full fragrance of May bloom could
show such dainty beauty, such endearing florescence as these young
pines on the borders of the deep wood. Nor could the pines do
better for their own protection than this. Ice which encases their
tender rootlets in the frozen ground and holds them warm and safe
through the most severe cold, came out of the sky with the storm for
the safety of tender twigs and young buds. Snow crystals hold
entangled within their mass eight or ten times their own bulk of
air. It is this entangled air, whether in the fluff of a woolen
blanket or in a snowfall, that fends from the cold. The first
clear night after a snowfall is almost sure to be a bitter one.
Calm follows the storm, the sky is clear and the radiation from
the snow-clad surface of the earth is great. This radiation lowers
the temperature, and as we look at our frost-bitten thermometers
in the early morning after, we do not wonder that the mercury has
shrunken to the zero mark or below. But what do the young pines
care? This radiation is only from the very surface of the
evaporating snow crystals. Robed in this regal ermine fluff from
top to toe, they hold their life warmth secure behind the
entangled mass of non-conducting air and are safe from all
disaster.

Our pines have suffered much from a mysterious "disease" for the
last few years, and the most careful study has failed to find any
fungus blight or insect at the bottom of this. We have had summer
after summer of severe and long continued drought. It is now
believed that this has weakened the trees so that they could not
withstand the winter cold and have been "winter killed." With the
drought we had several winters of infrequent snowfall. We did
better last winter and the disease seems to be on the wane. Next
to plenty of rain in summer, a winter in which we have frequent
falls o