CONSERVATION AND REPLENISHMENT. 199 



for many ages past the bulwark of the nation, we may 

 hope, from the goodness of our august sovereign, that he 

 will set an example to the nobility and men of large pos- 

 sessions, by ordering his wastes to be planted with ti mber- 

 trees, especially the oak." 



Latterly much more has been done to secure the con- 

 servation and extension, and to some extent the replenish- 

 ing of woodlands in England. The demand for timber for 

 the navy, in the commencement of the present century, 

 gave a fresh impulse to the arrest of wasteful treatment 

 of them, to the correction of abuses in the administration 

 of them, and to the development of the productiveness of 

 woodlands. But the detailing of what in consequence was 

 done would lead us beyond what may be called with strict 

 propriety, Early English Fore'stry. One purpose of the 

 present treatise is to prepare for a correct appreciation of 

 what has latterly been attempted by shewing, what pre- 

 viously was the condition of the woods and forests of 

 England, and what had previously been done both in 

 devastating these, and in endeavours to arrest, or mitigate 

 the evil. 



In connection with this allusion to planting hundreds of 

 years ago, may be adduced the following record of prices 

 paid in the reign of Charles II., for planting some trees in 

 an orchard : 



" An appricock tree, twenty pence ; an orange tree, 

 eight pence ; two royal Windsor pear trees, twenty pence ; 

 two Kentish pippins, twenty-eight pence ; two Flanders 

 cherries, thirty pence ; twenty-six roods of Peruvian roses, 

 sixty-six pence ; eight young apple trees, seven shillings ; 

 a mulberry tree, four shillings ; a peach tree, half-a-crown j 

 a medlar tree, one shilling ; and two dozen of tulips, three 

 shillings." 



