Let us arise and plant

April 10, 2014 3:50 AM

The legacy of John Evelyn’s Sylva— in 1664, on behalf of the Royal Society, the courtier, garden designer, entrepreneur, bee-keeper, connoisseur, author & celebrated diarist John Evelyn published Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions, which is supposed to have significantly influenced [PDF] forestry in the UK over the succeeding centuries. Now, ‘silvologist’ Gabriel Hemery and artist Sarah Simblet have produced a new work inspired by Evelyn’s—The New Sylva: A Discourse of Forest & Orchard Trees for the Twenty-First Century.
posted by misteraitch (4 comments total)

Quite lovely. Simblet's illustrations are breathtaking. The combination of themes of Britishness, forestry and respectful replacement means I can't help but think of the story of New College, Oxford's oaken beams.
posted by Rock Steady at 4:55 AM on April 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Note: the third link in the post goes to a copy of vol. 2 only of Evelyn’s Sylva at archive.org: I’d intended to link to both volumes: Vol. 1; Vol. 2.
posted by misteraitch at 5:22 AM on April 10, 2014

Plate o' shrimp. Sort of. I was just thinking yesterday about olives, and seed dispersal, and if olive trees still have the animal(s) around that ate and dispersed the fruit, or is human agriculture the only such vector now? We think of sheep and so on as "domesticated" but it seems to me olives and etc are no less domesticated.

Just an idle thought whilst I ate my olives that were grown and processed so a human can eat them, not whatever animals still, or used to.
posted by clvrmnky at 5:55 AM on April 10, 2014

Corn is pretty damn domesticated. You might as well call Iowa "Fidowa." You know, because corn dogs or whatever.
posted by oceanjesse at 6:07 AM on April 10, 2014