Our Pretty EVERGREENS. 15 

warmth for the traveller ; understanding them to be a behefit, 
rather than any detriment to the road bed. The tasteful 
evergreens add a cheerful look to the settler’s home, giving 
him a warm sunny bordering around his clearing and a hand- 
some view where edging the hillside. 
Through the old openings, mixed in with the young second 
growth of hard woods of many varieties, the evergreens 
always attract a pleased attention, as they add to the beauty, 
and here again usually fringing and shading the roadside. 
They are scattered over the (occasional) hilly and rocky 
old pasture, from the smallest to the largest, singly and in 
groups, and in thick clusters on the rugged rocky knoll. The 
older and taller growing in the centre, upon the summit, 
looking down over them all, that are each, as they grow, 
carrying their pretty cone-like shape from their base to the 
very last little bud at the top. Among the old growth in the 
forest many grow very tall, compared to these, and with 
large bodies at times, and these fir trees, instead of sporting 
such a wealth of thick branches encircling them from base to 
tip, have long smooth butts or boles, many fit for prime clear 
lumber. Yet again, the pretty cone-shaped ones are plenty 
in the forest wherever having a warm sunny chance, often by 
themselves, all through the glade and glen, and in the many 
natural openings, with the scattering hard wood trees, and 
the small ones three, four and five feet high often afford a 
shelter for the game (the rabbit and the partridge mostly). 
The snow falling thick upon them, the low down branches 
droop and their ends rest upon the ground, followed by all 
the others from above as the snow keeps falling damp and 
heavy upon them, one drooping down beside another, others 
lapping down covering all the space between them, the many 
