2072 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART IJI. 



only fifteen pence ; a circumstance which renders it probable that some par- 

 ticular ideas of sanctity were attached to the churchyard yews, and that they 

 only were employed in religious ceremonies. 



The history of the yew, as a garden tree, is involved in obscurity. There 

 is no evidence that it was used, eitlier for hedges, or for i)eing clipped into 

 artificial shapes, by the Romans ; and, therefore, it is probable that it was first 

 so employed in the west of Europe, and, in all probability, in France. In 

 England, clipped yews, whether as hedges or garden ornaments, were not 

 common in the early part of Evelyn's time; for that author claims, "without 

 vanitie," the merit of having been the first who brought the yew "into fashion, 

 as well for defence [meaning in hedges], as for a succedaneum to cypress, 

 whether in hedges or pyramids, conic spires, bowls, or what other shapes ; 

 adorning the parks or larger avenues with their lofty tops, 30 ft. high, and 

 braving all the effects of the most rigid winter, which cypress cannot weather. 

 I do again," he continues, " name the yew, for hedges, preferable, for beauty 

 and a stiff defence, to any plant I have ever seen." {Hunt. Evel., i. p. 'M\.) 

 The practice of clipping the yew and other trees into the shapes of animals 

 and geometrical forms seems to have been most prevalent from the time of 

 Charles I. to the latter end of WiUiam III., when it gradually gave way. Brad- 

 ley, writing in 1717 {New Improvements, p. 72.), says of the yew, — " I have 

 seen great varieties of figures, very well represented, of men, beasts, birds, 

 ships, and the like ; but the most connnon shapes which have been given to 

 the yew by gardeners are eitiier cones or pyramids." He prefers the yew 

 for clipping into forms of animals, on account of the smailness of its leaves ; 

 adding that " the holly, and other broad-leaved evergreens, are not fit for 

 being cut into any nicer figures " than pyramids, balls, or a straight stem 

 with a top like the cap of a nmsliroom. Switzer, writing about the same 

 time as Bradley, ventures to doubt the beauty of these figures; but the final 

 blow was given to them in the time of Queen Anne, by Bridgman, in Richmond 

 Park ; and by Pope, in a paper in the Gtiardian, vol. ii. No. 174'. The yew still 

 continues to be clipped in the form of hedges ; and in some places, for example 

 in some of the college gardens at Oxford, these hedges exhibit niches, arcades, 

 and pilasters. There are a few very old gardens in England, such as at 

 Wroxton, near Banbury, Stanstead, near Chichester, and Leven's Grove, in 

 Westmoreland, where the yew may still be seen cut into singular sha|)es, as 

 ornaments to regularly clipped hedges, and to ancient flower-gartlcns. The 

 effect of these is so striking and singular, that we are surprised the taste has 

 not, to a certain extent, been revived. This, we have no doubt, it will be, in 

 the gardens to Gothic and Elizabethan villas, as soon as men exercise their 

 reason in matters of this kind, and do not allow themselves to be led indis- 

 criminately by fashion. 



It may be mentioned, as a historical fact connected with the yew, that 

 De Candolle has adopted this tree as a sort of standard by which to determine 

 the age of trees generally, from the number of layers of wood in their trunks. 

 The reasons why he preferred the yew appear to be, that of this tree there 

 are a greater number of autiientic records of the age of individual specimens 

 than in the case of most other trees ; because the tree is very generally dis- 

 tributed throughout Europe; and, finally and chiefly, because the wood is of 

 slower growth and greater durability than that of any other European tree. 

 De Candolle, in his P/it/sio/ogic Vegetale, torn. ii. p. 974. and 1001., and also 

 in an article published in the Bihliotheque Universelle de Geneve, says that 

 measurements of the layers of three yews, one of 71, another of loO, and a 

 third of 280 years old, agreed in proving that this tree grows a little more 

 than one line annually in diameter in the first 150 years, and a little less from 

 150 to 250 years. He adds, " If we admit an average of a line annually for 

 very old yews, it is probably within the truth; and, in reckoning the number 

 of their years as equal to that of the lines of their diameter, we shall make 

 them to be younger than they actually are." The justness of Professor De 

 CandoUe's conclusion has been questioned by Professor Henslow, and other 



