Another work, however, he does mention, evidently that of a practical horticulturist and arboriculturist, probably belonging to a lower status of society than himself.

Writing of the _New Orchard and Garden_ (1597, 2nd.

edit.
1623), he patronises the author by calling him 'our countryman honest Lawson'; and after giving a long quotation from it with regard to pruning, he complacently concludes by adding 'Thus far the good man out of his eight and forty years experience concerning timber-trees.' Evelyn had the satisfaction of seeing his work bear much fruit during his own life-time, and this must have occasioned a quite exceptionally keen pleasure to a man of his disposition.

In his preface, dated 5 December 1678, to the fourth edition of _Sylva_, he writes in 'The Epistle Dedicatory' to the King that 'I need not acquaint your Majesty how many millions of timber-trees, besides infinite others, have been propagated and planted throughout your vast dominions, at the instigation, and by the sole directions of this work; because your gracious Majesty had been pleased to own it publickly for my encouragement, who in all that I here pretend to say, deliver only those precepts which your Majesty has put in practise; as having, like another Cyrus, by your own royal example, exceeded all your predecessors in the plantations you have made, beyond, I dare assert it, all the Monarchs of this nation, since the conquest of it.' Apart from the planting done in the royal woods and forests, details of Evelyn's diary shew that he was frequently called upon to give advice with regard to laying out private plantations,--as well as of ornamental gardens, on which subject he was also considered one of the leading authorities of the time.
More than a century after Evelyn's death, during the time of our wars with France, the demand for timber and the serious outlook with regard to future supplies once more drew marked attention to the propagation of timber throughout Britain, and many plantations of oak were then made which have not yet been entirely cleared to make way for other and now more profitable crops of wood.

A very decided impetus was given in this direction by the re-publication of the text of the fourth edition of _Sylva_ (as finally revised by the author in 1678), with copious notes by Dr.A.Hunter F.R.S.in 1812.