PREFACE 
There is perhaps no family of trees and shrubs of 
_ more imrortance to man than the Evergreens. They 
furnish raw materials which yield innumerable products 
—products of the highest importance in all the fields of 
man’s activity. The Evergreens, besides serving ordi- 
nary uses, hold a very important place from an esthetic 
point of view: they add a serious aspect to a landscape: 
their dark-green foliage relieves the monotonous though 
beautiful aspect of a deciduous forest: by themselves 
they are awe-inspiring and have in no small degree con- 
tributed to the weird if not melancholy sagas and melo- 
dies of the Northern people: intermixed with the Oaks 
their influence has found expression in a more melodious 
and milder harmony, as characterized by the literature 
and music of the Celts, of Central, Western or Southern 
Europe. 
To appreciate the influence of an ever green forest, its 
monotonous and weird music, it is necessary to have lived 
in its midst, to have wandered through it at all seasons 
of the year, to have seen its fresh foliage in the mild 
season and,its snow-laden boughs in winter. What is 
handsomer than a White Pine, a Silver Fir, a Scandi- 
navian Spruce, a Virginian Cedar, or a Bald Cypress as 
it stands in the waters with its branches laden with 
*¢Spanish Moss’? 
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