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SYLVA: _OR A DISCOURSE
OF FOREST TREES & THE
PROPAGATION OF TIMBER_
_V O L U M E O N E_




{Illustration: _John Evelyn_
_From the engraving by R. Nanteuil_}




S Y L V A

_OR A DISCOURSE OF FOREST
TREES_: BY JOHN EVELYN F.R.S.
_WITH AN ESSAY ON THE LIFE
AND WORKS OF THE AUTHOR_
BY JOHN NISBET D.Œc.

A REPRINT OF THE FOURTH
EDITION IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME ONE

LONDON: PUBLISHED BY ARTHUR
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY LIMITED
AT 8 YORK BUILDINGS ADELPHI




CONTENTS.


VOLUME I.

Introduction page ix
Title Page of 4th Edition „ lxxiii
To the King „ lxxv
To the Reader „ lxxvii
Advertisement „ xcix
Books published by the Author „ ci
Amico carissimo „ cii
Nobilissimo Viro „ ciii
ΕΙΣ ΤΗΝ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΤΡΟΣ ΔΕΝΔΡΟΛΟΓΙΑΝ „ cvi
The Garden.--To J. Evelyn, Esq. „ cvii

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I. Of the Earth, Soil, Seed, Air, and Water „ 1
„ II. Of the Seminary and of Transplanting „ 12
„ III. Of the Oak „ 30
„ IV. Of the Elm „ 62
„ V. Of the Beech „ 75
„ VI. Of the Horn-beam „ 81
„ VII. Of the Ash „ 86
„ VIII. Of the Chesnut „ 94
„ IX. Of the Wallnut „ 101
„ X. Of the Service, and black cherry-tree „ 111
„ XI. Of the Maple „ 115
„ XII. Of the Sycomor „ 121
„ XIII. Of the Lime-Tree „ 122
„ XIV. Of the Poplar, Aspen, and Abele „ 128
„ XV. Of the Quick-Beam „ 134
„ XVI. Of the Hasel „ 136
„ XVII. Of the Birch „ 140
„ XVIII. Of the Alder „ 155
„ XIX. Of the Withy, Sallow, Ozier, and Willow „ 159
„ XX. Of Fences, Quick-sets, &c. „ 175

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I. Of the Mulberry „ 203
„ II. Of the Platanus, Lotus, Cornus, Acacia, &c. „ 214
„ III. Of the Fir, Pine, Pinaster, Pitch-tree,
Larsh, and Subterranean trees „ 220
„ IV. Of the Cedar, Juniper, Cypress, Savine,
Thuya, &c. „ 253
„ V. Of the Cork, Ilex, Alaternus, Celastrus,
Ligustrum, Philyrea, Myrtil, Lentiscus,
Olive, Granade, Syring, Jasmine and other
Exoticks „ 282
„ VI. Of the Arbutus, Box, Yew, Holly, Pyracanth,
Laurel, Bay, &c. „ 293
„ VII. Of the infirmities of trees, &c. „ 314

VOLUME II.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I. Of Copp’ces page 1
„ II. Of Pruning „ 8
„ III. Of the Age, Stature, and Felling of Trees „ 24
„ IV. Of Timber, the Seasoning and Uses, and of Fuel „ 80
„ V. Aphorisms, or certain General Precepts of use
to the foregoing Chapters „ 130
„ VI. Of the Laws and Statutes for the Preservation
and Improvement of Woods and Forests „ 138
„ VII. The paraenesis and conclusion, containing
some encouragements and proposals for the
planting and improvement of his Majesty’s
forests, and other amunities for shade,
and ornament „ 157

BOOK IV.

An historical account of the sacredness and use
of standing groves, &c. „ 205

Renati Rapini „ 269




INTRODUCTION.


I

_Evelyn & his literary contemporaries Isaac Walton & Samuel Pepys._

Among the prose writers of the second half of the seventeenth century
John Evelyn holds a very distinguished position. The age of the
Restoration and the Revolution is indeed rich in many names that have
won for themselves an enduring place in the history of English
literature. South, Tillotson, and Barrow among theologians, Newton in
mathematical science, Locke and Bentley in philosophy and classical
learning, Clarendon and Burnet in history, L’Estrange, Butler, Marvell
and Dryden in miscellaneous prose, and Temple as an essayist, have all
made their mark by prose writings which will endure for all time. But
the names which stand out most prominently in popular estimation as
authors of great masterpieces in the prose of this period are certainly
those of John Bunyan, John Evelyn, and Izaak Walton. And along with them
Samuel Pepys is also well entitled to be ranked as a great contemporary
writer, though he was at pains to try and ensure his being permitted to
remain free from the publicity of authorship, for such time at least as
the curious might allow his Diary to remain hidden in the cipher he
employed.

With the great though untrained genius of Bunyan none of these other
three celebrated prose authors of this time has anything in common. He
stands apart from them in his fervently religious and romantic
temperament, in his richness of representation and ingenuity of
analogy, and in his forcible quaintness of style, as completely as he
did in social status and in personal surroundings. In complete contrast
to the romantic productions of the self-educated tinker of Bedford, the
works of Walton and Evelyn were at any rate influenced by, though they
can hardly be said to have been moulded upon, the style of the preceding
age of old English prose writers ending with Milton. The influence of
the latter is, indeed, plainly noticeable both in the diction and in the
general sentiment of these two great masters of the pure, nervous
English of their period.

It would serve no good purpose to make any attempt here to trace the
points of resemblance between the works of Walton and Evelyn, and then
to note their differences in style. Each has contributed a masterpiece
towards our national literature, and it would be a mere waste of time to
make comparisons between their chief productions. This much, however,
may be remarked, that the conditions under which each worked were
completely different from those surrounding the other. Izaak Walton, the
author of many singularly interesting biographies, and of the quaint
half-poetical _Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation_,
the great classic “Discourse of Fish and Fishing,” was a London
tradesman, while his equally celebrated contemporary John Evelyn, author
of _Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees_, the classic of British
Forestry, was a more highly cultured man, who wrote, in the leisure of
official duties and amid the surroundings of easy refinement, many
useful and tasteful works both in prose and poetry, ranging over a wide
variety of subjects. Judging from the number of editions which appeared
of their principal works, they were both held in great favour by the
reading public, though on the whole the advantage in some respects lay
with Evelyn. But during the present century the taste of the public,
judged by this same rough and ready, practical standard, has undoubtedly
awarded the prize of popularity to Izaac Walton.

So far as the circumstances of their early life were concerned there was
greater similarity between Walton and Pepys, than between either of them
and Evelyn. Born in the lower middle class, the son of a tailor in
London, and himself afterwards a member of the Clothworkers’ guild,
Pepys was a true Londoner. His tastes were centred entirely in the town,
and his pleasures were never sought either among woods or green fields,
or by the banks of trout streams and rivers. His thoughts seem often
tainted with the fumes of the wine-bowl and the reek of the tavern; and
even when he swore off drink, as he frequently did, he soon relapsed
into his customary habits. Educated in London and then at Cambridge,
where his love of a too flowing bowl already got him into trouble more
than once, he was imprudent enough to incur the responsibilities of
matrimony at the early age of twenty-three, with a beautiful girl only
fifteen years old.