54 History of the English Landed Interest. 



a means of subsistence, — and the cultivation of both was to 

 minds thus constituted a sacred duty. 



Yarrauton, even in the act of encouraging the propagation 

 of timber, evinces a preference for one of our native products 

 which was soon to add more to England's greatness than 

 either wood or wheat. Thus, when advocating an Act of 

 Parliament for the enclosure of all commons, " fit, or any way 

 likely, to bear wood," in the Forest of Dean, for the supply of 

 future wants in our shipping and building,^ he compares this 

 district to the sheep's back, its iron to the wool, and sets the 

 encouragement of both these commodities before any' other 

 advantage to his native country. ^ 



Evelyn relates how, in the great expedition of "88," the 

 Spanish captains were under orders, directly the Armada had 

 triumphed over the English men-of-war, to leave no single 

 tree standing in the Forest of Dean. This the author im- 

 agined was a precaution prompted by the Philistine policy of 

 compelling every Hebrew to sharpen his tool at his enemy's 

 forge. In the case of the Israelite, it resulted in no weapons 

 of war being found in his possession at the renewal of hostil- 

 ities, and in the English case it would have diminished our 

 resources for reconstructing the Navy. 



It is very probable that the Spaniards did contemplate some 

 such operation, for Sir Richard Weston also alludes to the 

 subject, stating that in Queen Elizabeth's days they sent an 

 ambassador purposely to get this wood destroyed.^ 



Like Arthur Young, Evelyn brought to bear on any im- 

 provement of the existing economy which he happened to be 

 advocating, the corroborative evidence of foreign experiences. 

 Both had travelled for purposes of business as well as pleasure. 

 Evelyn held arboriculture in view whenever he opened a 

 foreign book or entered a foreign grove, and to Young agri- 

 culture was the motive power which brought into play his 

 faculties of perception. Eventually both came home and pub- 

 lished the conclusions to which all their varied experiences 



' A recommendation soon adopted by the State, vidt 20 Car. II. c. 3. 

 ' England's Improvements by Sea and Land, p. 57. Yarrauton, 1677. 

 * Treatise concerning the Husbandry, etc., of England, 1651. 



