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 andgs. 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. 
