Sylva

A handful of acorns, John Evelyn argues, can turn a cold, barren hill into a grove worth more than rich wheat land.

In seventeenth-century England, landowners often despaired of heaths and rocky slopes, while Evelyn saw ground waiting to be put to use. First presented to the Royal Society in 1662 and published in 1664, Sylva asks how timber trees can be raised on soils that seem to resist them. Evelyn weighs the needs of different trees, from oak to pine, and explains how careful sowing, patient preparation and a little attention to the land can make the difference. But which seeds—and which neglected acres—hold the promise of a future woodland?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.