England was anciently remarkable for its forests, but Caesar says it wanted the fagus and the abies. There can be no doubt that fagus means the beech, which, as the remains in the Danish peat-mosses show, is a tree of late introduction into Denmark, where it succeeded the fir, a tree not now native to that country. The succession of forest crops seems to have been the same in England; for Harrison, p. 359, speaks of the "great store of firre" found lying "at their whole lengths" in the "fens and marises" of Lancashire and other counties, where not even bushes grew in his time. We cannot be sure what species of evergreen Caesar intended by abies. The popular designations of spike-leaved trees are always more vague and uncertain in their application than those of broad-leaved trees. PINUS, PINE, has been very loosely employed even in botanical nomenclature, and KIEFER, FICHTE, and TANNE are often confounded in German.--Rossmassler, Der Wald, pp. 256, 289, 324. A similar confusion in the names of this family of trees exists in India. Dr. Cleghorn, Inspector-General of the Indian Forests, informs us in his official Circular No. 2, that the name of deodar is applied in some provinces to a cypress, in some to a cedar, and in others to a juniper. If it were certain that the abies of Caesar was the fir formerly and still found in peat-mosses, and that he was right in denying the existence of the beech in England in his time, the observation would be very important, because it would fix a date at which the fir had become extinct, and the beech had not yet appeared in the island. The English oak, though strong and durable, was not considered generally suitable for finer work in the sixteenth century. There were, however, exceptions. "Of all in Essex," observes Harrison, Holinshed, i., p. 357, "that growing in Bardfield parke is the finest for ioiners craft; for oftentimes haue I seene of their workes made of that oke so fine and faire, as most of the wainescot that is brought hither out of Danske [Danzig]; for our wainescot is not made in England. Yet diuerse haue assaied to deale with our okes to that end, but not with so good successe as they haue hoped, bicause the ab or iuice will not so soone be removed and cleane drawne out, which some attribute to want of time in the salt water." This passage is also of interest as showing that soaking in salt-water, as a mode of seasoning, was practised in Harrison's time.