INTRODUCTION 



Evelyn's " sylva " and present times 



To those who love the beautiful woods of this country 

 or, in fact, any of the open-air pursuits connected with 

 them, Evelyn's classic Sylva will be well known. 

 There is a fascination and at the present time a grave 

 significance for us all in the quaint wording of its title — 

 *' Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees and the Propa- 

 gation of Timber in His Majesty's Dominions." 



Perhaps never since it made its first appearance 

 has the need for pondering over and acting upon the 

 advice of this most remarkable and far-seeing man, as 

 adumbrated in his Sylva, been so urgent as in these 

 early years of the twentieth century. 



The Sylva was written at the instigation and under 

 the auspices of the Royal Society, then recently founded 

 under the patronage of Charles the Second (in 1662, 

 Evelyn being one of the first Fellows and a Member of 

 the Council). Evelyn is interesting on the objects for 

 which the great Society was inaugurated : '* Those 

 who perfectly comprehend the scope and end of that 

 Noble Institution, which is to improve natural know- 

 ledge, and enlarge the empire of operative philosophy, 

 not by an abolition of the old, but by the real effects 

 of the experimental, collecting, examining, and im^ 



ix 



