300 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
mortification to see nine young steers or bullocks of his own all 
lying dead in an heap from browsing a little on an hedge of yew in 
an old garden, into which they had broken in snowy weather. 
Even the clippings of a yew hedge have destroyed a whole dairy 
of cows when thrown inadvertently into a yard. And yet sheep 
and turkeys, and, as park-keepers say, deer will crop these trees 
with impunity. 
Some intelligent persons assert that the branches of yew, while 
green, are not noxious ; and that they will kill only when dead and 
withered, by lacerating the stomach; but to this assertion we 
cannot by any means assent, because among the number of cattle 
that we have known fall victims to this deadly food, not one has 
been found, when it was opened, but had a lump of green yew in 
its paunch. ‘True it is, that yew-trees stand for twenty years or 
more in a field, and no bad consequences ensue ; but at some time 
or other cattle, either from wantonness when full, or from hunger 
when empty (from both which circumstances we have seen them 
perish), will be meddling, to their certain destruction; the yew 
seems to be a very improper tree for a pasture-field. 
Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what period this 
tree first obtained a place in church-yards. A statute passed 
A.D. 1307 and 35 Edward I. the title of which is “Ne rector 
arbores in cemeterio prosternat.” Now if it is recollected that we 
seldom see any other very large or ancient tree in a church-yard 
but yews, this statute must have principally related to this species 
of tree ; and consequently their being planted in church-yards is 
of much more ancient date than the year 1307. 
As to the use of these trees, possibly the more respectable 
parishioners were buried under their shade before the improper 
custom was introduced of burying within the body of the church, 
where the living are to assemble. Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse,* was 
buried under an oak; the most honourable place of interment 
probably next to the cave of Machpelah,t which seems to have 
been appropriated to the remains of the patriarchal family alone. 
The farther use of the yew-trees might be as a screen to churches, 
by their thick foliage, from the violence of winds; perhaps also 
for the purpose of archery, the best long bows being made of that 
material ; and we do not hear that they are planted in the church- 
yards of other parts of Europe, where long bows were not so much 
* Gen. xxxv 8. ¢ Gen. xxiii. 9. 
