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yew trees in our churchyards are among the highest antiquities 

 in the vegetable world. Some people have said that yew trees 

 are poisonous to cattle, and they were planted in churchyards in 

 order that farmers might not turn their cattle into them. Well, 

 that does not satisfy me, and I do not sujipose that it satisfies 

 many members of the Club. Another reason was that the 

 branches of the yeAV trees made good bows, and that at the time 

 when our artillery consisted chiefly of bows and arrows, it was 

 a matter of public interest that yew trees should be cultivated, 

 and so they were planted in the churchyards. I think the 

 national interest would hardly have been dependent upon such a 

 provision as that. Yet another way of explaining it is that the 

 yew tress succeeded to the cypresses of the classical period as 

 symbols of mourning. 



All this seems to me to be exceedingly fanciful, and does not 

 bite into the marrow of the case, but one hint I got from Bishop 

 Hobhouse, and T was very glad, when as I was preparing these 

 remarks and turning over old memoranda, to come upon the very 

 date when Bishop Hobhouse communicated the idea to me. His 

 idea was tliat they were planted for the shelter and protection of 

 the worshippers around the cross when as yet they had no roof 

 over their heads. I felt at once that this touched the truth, and 

 ever since that time I have continually looked and searched for 

 evidence with the purjiose of ascertaining whether the yew trees 

 were in the churchyards before the churches were built. From 

 the localities in which they are generally found, namely, on the 

 south side of the chancel, and the east or west side of the south 

 door, it would seem that they were about and around the spot 

 upon which the cross stood. 



The cross usually stood upon the south side of the line now 

 occupied by the church and most generally somewhere about the 

 middle of that line, and the fact that these trees are found on 

 one side or the other of that spot shows that there was probably 

 a ring of yew trees round the cross, the best possible protection 



