EVELYN, John.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Silva: or, a Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in his Majesty's Dominions: First Hunter edition, the sixth overall, establishing Evelyn's pioneering work as a perennial classic. First published in 1664 and intended to encourage tree planting after the devastation of the civil war, it was republished in response to a a similar emergency, caused by the American War of Independence, in which Britain's shipbuilders lost access to their best timber reserves.During the conflicts of the 1640s and 1650s, the need for glass and iron increased rapidly, but the wood used to fire the furnaces and factories was not being replaced by fresh planting. This led to a serious shortage of wood from which the navy could construct ships. Sylva played a major role in promoting afforestation as a solution to the crisis and was Evelyn's most important work published in his lifetime, his famous diary not appearing until 1818. Hunter (1729-1809), a physician who founded the York Asylum, shared with Evelyn the concept of the amateur scientist as a genteel member of a learned profession whose interests were not bounded by occupation.

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