v.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



171 



little on a 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 inadver- 

 tently 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 



l,KA\ KSI.INK II. Cill.BRKT WIIITK. KAST KN1) (IF Clinu'llYAKII. 



number of cattle that we have known fall victims to this deadly 

 food, not one lias 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 conse- 

 quences 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. 



