92 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 



additional, not the least important of which was cordage. 

 The Indian made binding thongs from the tough roots of 

 hemlock, cedar and yew. 



Our broad-leaved evergreens are mostly low shrubs, and 

 trailing ground-cover herbs. One of the finest of them, in the 

 freshness of its winter greenery and in beauty of its summer 

 flowers, is the mountain laurel. In the woods on the ground 

 there are clumps of evergreen ferns, and partridge berry and 

 wintergreen, and tufts of perennial mosses, and considerable 

 areas are often overspread with the bright and shining ver- 

 dure of the blue myrtle, or, in dry places, with the gray-green 

 of the moss-pink. Many of our scattered herbs like alum- 

 root and wild strawberry remain green over winter if not too 

 much exposed. Even the grasses of our lawns remain green, 

 with a little protection. 



Study 12. Evergreens of the Farm 



An examination of all the commoner and more interesting 

 evergreens of the farm, with a view to learning their earmarks, 

 is the object of this study. The apparatus needed will be a 

 lens and a pocket knife. 



The program of the work will include a trip about the lawns 

 where specimen trees grown in the open may be found, * and 

 a visit to the woods to see the evergreens of the forest cover 

 and the forest floor. The species are to be examined care- 

 fully, one by one, and their salient characters noted. The 

 conifers are to be written up in a table prepared with headings 

 as indicated on pages 94 and 95. The more heterogeneous 

 broad-leaved evergreens are to be listed, with brief notes as 

 to their characters and habits. 



*Often the most available living collection of evergreens will be 

 found in a neighboring cemetery or park. 



