ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 77 
requisites, he had the additional qualification of 
being a most devoted and loyal courtier, dis- 
tinguished by his protestations of loyalty even 
at a time when the general tone of the de- 
monstration and expression of this was what 
would now be considered sycophantic in the 
extreme. Bringing a vast store of enthusiasm, 
a graceful style, and what was in those times 
termed a ‘pretty wit’ to the genial task, Evelyn 
on 15th October 1662 read to the Royal Society 
his Sylva; or, a Discourse of Forest Trees, and 
the Propagation of Timber in His Mayestie’s Do- 
minions. Ordered by the Society to be printed, 
this charming work, the great classic of British 
Forestry, went through no less than five editions 
by 1729, nine editions by 1812, and two since. 
In these days of depression in the value of 
landed estate, of death duties, of rating of wood- 
lands, of other burdens that have fallen heavily on 
land, and lastly, of often excessive preservation 
of ground game, Evelyn might have been speak- 
ing but yesterday when, in his preface ‘to the 
Reader,’ he says that his treatise ‘is only for 
the Encouragement of an Industry, and worthy 
Labour, too much in our days neglected, as haply 
