First and foremost, he held the brief in an excellent cause, because the maintenance of adequate supplies of oak timber for shipbuilding ever remained a question of very serious national importance right down to the time when this pressure was removed by the introduction of steam communication and the use of Indian Teak and subsequently of iron for purposes of construction.

Then again, his position as a courtier and a country gentleman, and as one of the most prominent members of the recently established Royal Society, gave him a much higher degree of prominence than such adventitious aids would ensure in our present far more democratic days.

Finally, he had no small confidence in his own ability ('conceit' his friend Mr.Samuel Pepys calls it in his diary); and this has been recognised in the numerous editions of _Sylva_ that have from time to time been found worthy of publication.
Although by far the most celebrated of English writers on Arboriculture, Evelyn was by no means the first who wrote on this subject.

That honour belongs to Master Fitzherbert, whose _Boke of Husbandrie_ was published in 1534.

But it is a curious fact that the most important previous contribution towards the propagation of timber--leaving Manwood's _Treatise of the Forrest Lawes_ (1598) out of consideration--is apparently never mentioned by Evelyn.