IRISH GARDENING 



VOLUME V. 



No. 4;. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL DE\-OTED TO THE 



AD\ANCEMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND 



.ARBORICULTURE IN IRELAND 



MARCH 



1910 



The Yew 



Bv Archibald E. Moerax, Poriumna, Co. Gahvav 



IF we go back to the vag^ue "once upon a 

 time" of our history when man began to 

 invent and use primitive weapons to aid 

 him in procuring- food, or in inter-tribal argu- 

 ments, we can 

 understand 

 that the yew 

 soon became a 

 tree of the first 

 importance to 

 the sportsman 

 and the man 

 of war. In the 

 great w o o d s 

 that clothed 

 Ireland there 

 were but three 

 or four species 

 of tree all told — 

 but the yew was 

 one of them, 

 and especially 

 on rocky hill- 

 sides was plen- 

 tiful enough, 

 and no other 

 timber — not 

 even the oak — 

 was as heavy 

 and hard and 

 tough. A well- 

 balanced club 

 of yew would 

 light on an 

 enemy's skull with a woeful crash, as there was 

 a spring in the handle that no other timber gave, 

 and which made such exercise quite a pleasure. 

 Through the stone age and the bronze age yew 

 would naturally be the wood used for the handles 

 for the universal axe. Xo wood is more suitable 

 for carving and polishing, and this, of course, 



was just what was wanted. The more expensive 

 furniture — platters, doors, and numbers of odds 

 and ends of domestic utensils — were made of 

 yew, and later a country famous for its archery 



depended o n 

 this tree to sup- 

 ply its bows. 



To-day we 

 find yew-logs in 

 plenty, hard 

 and tough, and 

 stained a dull 

 brown by their 

 centuries of se- 

 clusion under 

 fifteen feet of 

 bog. S o m e- 

 times we find 

 the manufac- 

 tured article — 

 the handle or 

 the stool — and 

 I know of one 

 place where 

 there was a 

 "corduroy" 

 road exposed 

 year by year as 

 the turf was cut 

 leading down to 

 a ford on the 

 •j-j^j-g Shannon. The 



old woodcut cross pieces 



were mostly oi 

 yew checked into the side-logs, and held in place 

 by yew and oak pins. By the way, it is not 

 generally realised that what is called the Irish 

 *' yew " — that is the upright-growing variety — is 

 not the old indigenous yew at all, but a " sport " 

 that was found growing near Florence Court. 

 Co. Fermanagh, about 150 years ago, and per- 



