OLD FORESTS xxi 



speedily resolved upon, for a future store, one of the 

 most glorious and considerable bulwarks of this nation, 

 will, within a short time, be totally wanting to it." 



Immediate and speedy planting was the chief note 

 of Evelyn's bugle call. He was not concerned with 

 planting schemes to cover a period of fifty years or 

 more. His writings and personal exhortations to his 

 friends and others produced the desired result ; and 

 lucky was it for this country that they did so, for the 

 results of that crusade are incalculable. 



Dr. Hunter, in his " Notes " to the 1776 Edition, 

 briefly accounts for the state of the woods as de- 

 scribed by Evelyn. The first attack, of any material 

 consequences, on the woods of the country was begun 

 in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of Henry VIII, 

 when that monarch seized upon the church lands and 

 converted thein, together with their woods, to his 

 own use. As the whole kingdom was at that time 

 plentifully stocked with all kinds of timber-trees, 

 especially oak, the fellings then made did not seri- 

 ously imperil the national timber supply. The deplor- 

 able fellings and waste took place during the Civil War, 

 from 1642 onwards up to the Restoration. Extensive 

 forests, existing at the commencement of this period, 

 were literally wiped from the face of the country, 

 and have since been only represented by the name 

 attached to them at the time they existed. Both 

 royal and privately owned forests suffered almost 

 equally. It was to remedy this state of affairs that 

 Evelyn wrote. And a hundred years later Dr. Hunter's 

 aim in bringing out a new edition of Evelyn sought to 



