FORESTRY 



ALTHOUGH far less eventful or remarkable with regard to its 

 ancient forests and woodlands than any of the other counties 

 within easy reach of the royal capitals, Winchester and Lon- 

 don, Surrey possesses special interest from an arboricultural 

 point of view through having been the birthplace and home of John 

 Evelyn, the author of the great classic of English forestry, Sylva ; or, A 

 Discourse of Forest Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majestie's 

 Dominions. His charming work, written, as the preface tells us in words 

 which apply as well now as they did then, ' only for the encourage- 

 ment of an Industry, and worthy Labour, too much in our days neglected, 

 as haply esteem'd a consideration of too sordid and vulgar a nature 

 for Noble Persons and Gentlemen to busie themselves withal, and who 

 oftener find ways to fell down and destroy their Trees and Plantations, 

 than either to repair or improve them,' was first read as a paper before 

 the Royal Society on 15 October, 1662, and published with additions 

 in 1664. It met with so favourable a reception that it went through 

 four editions within little more than forty years ; and before the 

 author's death in 1706 it had stimulated many landowners throughout 

 England to make plantations of oak and other timber trees with a 

 view to fiiture profit. This was also the effect of the sixth to the 

 eleventh editions of Syha, edited by A. Hunter, M.D., between 

 1786 and 1825, which appeared when interest had again become awak- 

 ened by the serious outlook with regard to providing adequate supplies 

 of timber for Britain's growing demands before the introduction of 

 steam communication by land and water had simplified this problem. 

 As already stated ^ Surrey has a total area of 461,791 acres, of which 

 54,437 acres, or about i if per cent., are woods and plantations, while 12,98 1 

 acres are mountain and heath land (the latter chiefly in the west of the 

 county) used for rough grazing. In proportion to its total area, Surrey 

 is one of the best wooded counties in England, even though it contains 

 few compact woodlands of large extent ; and the timber and trees con- 

 tribute in no mean degree to the beauty of scenery for which the county 

 is famed. The area under woods and plantations had increased by 

 11,463 acres between 1881 and 1895, when the latest statistics were 

 collected. 



» V. C. H., Surrey, i. 35. 

 II 561 71 



