Patrick Matthew

On Naval Timber and Arboriculture
 With Critical Notes on Authors who have Recently Treated the Subject of Planting

"On Naval Timber and Arboriculture" by Patrick Matthew is a book published in 1831. Ostensibly a treatise on growing trees for shipbuilding, this work contains a remarkable surprise: buried in its appendices is an early articulation of natural selection, appearing twenty-eight years before Darwin's "Origin of Species." The book's unconventional structure—a jumble of topics spanning forestry, politics, human races, and evolutionary theory—reflects its chaotic assembly, with Matthew adding sections even as it went to press.