great liberty that his
leather is much worse than before. But is not this a mockery of our laws,
and manifest illusion of the good subject whom they thus pill and poll? Of
all oak growing in England the park oak is the softest, and far more spalt
and brittle than the hedge oak. And of all in Essex, that growing in
Bardfield Park is the finest for joiners' craft; for oftentimes have I
seen of their works made of that oak as fine and fair as most of the
wainscot that is brought hither out of Denmark: for our wainscot is not
made in England. Yet divers have essayed to deal without oaks to that end,
but not with so good success as they have hoped, because the ab or juice
will not so soon be removed and clean drawn out, which some attribute to
want of time in the salt water. Nevertheless, in building, so well the
hedge as the park oak go all one way, and never so much hath been spent in
a hundred years before as is in ten years of our time; for every man
almost is a builder, and he that hath bought any small parcel of ground,
be it never so little, will not be quiet till he have pulled down the old
house (if any were there standing) and set up a new after his own device.
But whereunto will this curiosity come?

Of elm we have great store in every highway and elsewhere, yet have I not
seen thereof any together in woods or forests but where they have been
first planted and then suffered to spread at their own wills. Yet have I
known great woods of beech and hazel in many places, especially in
Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Buckinghamshire, where they are greatly
cherished, and converted to sundry uses by such as dwell about them. Of
all the elms that ever I saw, those in the south side of Dovercourt, in
Essex, near Harwich, are the most notable, for they grow (I mean) in
crooked manner, that they are almost apt for nothing else but navy timber,
great ordinance, and beetles; and such thereto is their natural quality
that, being used in the said behalf, they continue longer, and more long
than any the like trees in whatsoever parcel else of this land, without
cuphar, shaking, or cleaving, as I find.

Ash cometh up everywhere of itself, and with every kind of wood. And as we
have very great plenty, and no less use of these in our husbandry, so are
we not without the plane, the yew, the sorb, the chestnut, the lime, the
black cherry, and such like. And although we enjoy them not in as great
plenty now in most places as in times past,