evil/incf/add-to-list

[gregrwm]

i have emacs 24.3.1, and until today i've been using evil 1.0.7:

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/evil/lib")
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/evil")
(require 'undo-tree)
(require 'evil)
(global-undo-tree-mode)
(evil-mode 1)

now i'm using melpa:

(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elpa/undo-tree-20131118.1744")
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elpa/evil-20131218.54")
(require 'undo-tree)
(require 'evil)
(global-undo-tree-mode)
(evil-mode 1)

apparently evil 1.0.7 in turn made incf available.  now, to use incf i
also need:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/local/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/emacs-lisp")
(require 'cl)

and in the process i noticed that i don't need any of the
add-to-list's in order to run the (require '...)'s manually (via
^x^e), but i do need them if i want the require's to run in my .emacs!
 can anyone help me understand or drop me a pointer?  am i missing
something?