Many a wire, in less than two or three years, was withered to the merest shred of rust.

As if these troubles were not enough, there were the storms of winter, which might wipe out a year's revenue in a single day.

The sleet storms were the worst.

Wires were weighted down with ice, often three pounds of ice per foot of wire.

And so, what with sleet, and corrosion, and the cost of roof-repairing, and the lack of room for more wires, the telephone men were between the devil and the deep sea--between the urgent necessity of burying their wires, and the inexorable fact that they did not know how to do it.
Fortunately, by the time that this problem arrived, the telephone business was fairly well established.