shall keep fresh and green in memory while memory endures! I am no
botanist, I have made no studies of the evergreens, nor shall I attempt
to write of them as scholar or critic, but only as a fascinated
observer. I neither care to know or tell whether the shrubs and trees in
my evergreen pictures are angiosperms or gymnosperms; we have no
'transportation' for text books for students! During these two years,
however, I have been charmed with a thousand views of landscape scenery,
embracing every form, hue, and combination of our lovely native
evergreens, whether on mountain, hill, or plain. I have seen them along
winding streams, with backgrounds of bold, rocky bluffs; sweeping across
undulating plains; rising with the uplifting mountains; peering into and
over romantic mountain gorges; and growing up through the interstices of
bowldered cascades. Or, standing on the mountain peaks, I have seen them
sweep away into the vastness and grandeur of mighty, varied, and almost
boundless expanse. These are but parts of my evergreen pictures. I have
looked upon a simple holly bush when the wind of winter was upon it,
scattering in lovely fragments its pure white robe of snow, revealing
the gleaming of the rich green leaves, and the half-hidden clusters of
the carmine berries. Three distinct colors thrown carelessly together,
but no want of harmony--only pure and exquisite beauty!

In the summer months our evergreens are greatly less noticeable. They
are overshadowed and eclipsed by the rich and exuberant foliage of our
common but noble forest trees; but their beauty is not, even then, lost.
They give variety of hues to the forests which they fringe or help to
form; variety of shapes, and always exquisite, spicy, and healthful
odors. But when the autumn comes, with its infinitely varied tintings of
orange and vermilion; when the frost works its wonders, and the wooded
hills are clothed with splendor--then the rich groups of our native
evergreens rise in their immortality of freshness. How exquisitely their
bright unfading green sets off and contrasts with the rich golds,
glowing scarlets, russet browns, purples, and crimsons, in all their
delicate shades and evanescent hues! The forest leaves grow sere and
fall from their stems, sailing down singly or in groups, like bevies of
frightened birds, until the hickory, oak, maple, and elm stand
uncrowned, disrobed, lifting their bare arms to the winter skies; then
higher and ever higher