xlii 



PREFACE. 



shade, trees may claim an interest with men of all 

 tastes and professions. If a man be a soldier, he 

 may remember trees which have sustained whole 

 armies during a siege, which have concealed them 

 from the observation of the enemy, and w^hich 

 have furnished them with fires when they had no 

 snug chimney-corner at hand ; if he be a lawyer, 

 how many pounds have been poured into his 

 pocket by litigation concerning w^oods, parks, and 

 plantations ; if he be a physician, he will know that 

 much of his power to remove disease, and to re- 

 store health to man, is obtained from trees, from 

 their roots, their bark, their gum, their leaves, 

 their blossoms, their fruit, and their seeds. 



Philosophers, and men of letters, will remember 

 Plato's lectures to his disciples ; the divine will 

 think of the Olive branch, and will consider that 

 Christ himself loved his garden, and sought the 

 neighbourhood of trees, for meditation ; and even 

 the mere man of commerce will not think without 

 pleasure of the profits of solid timber. As to 

 poets, they always did love trees, and always will. 



They thought of no other heaven," says Evelyn, 



