ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 55 



and upwards, after that rate, either by free deed, 

 copie hold, or fee farme, might plant one acre of 

 wood, or sowe the same with oke mast, hasell, 

 beech, and sufficient provision be made that it 

 may be cherished and kept. But I feare me that 

 I should then live too long, and so long that I 

 should either be wearie of the world, or the 

 world of me ; and yet they are not such things 

 but they may easilie be brought to passe.' 



Even earlier than this, however, trees and 

 woods had been cultivated prior to the reign of 

 Edward IV., while in 1523 John Fitzherbert 

 wrote his Book of Husbandry, the first work 

 in the English language which deals with the 

 cultivation of trees. In this he treats shortly 

 of the removal and planting of trees, the fell- 

 ing of timber and of wood for household use or 

 sale, the * shredding* or pollarding of trees, and 

 coppicing in enclosures, or how ' to kepe springe 

 wode' Immediately after the chapter on trees 

 comes a quaintly-naive passage in which 'short 

 informacyon for a yonge gentylman that entendeth 

 to thryve ' is thus given : * I advyse hym to get a 

 copy of this present booke and to rede it frome 

 the begynnynge to the endynge, wherby he may 



