THE YEW 83 



From the measurement of the layers of annual 

 growth in many Yews, De Candolle concluded that it 

 was within the mark to reckon their increase in 

 diameter at a line a year throughout their life, and it 

 was from such measurements that he concluded that 

 such trees as sometimes occur with a girth of twenty- 

 seven feet, or more, may even have passed the age of 

 two thousand years. An exaggerated estimate may, 

 however, be formed of the age of a Yew tree from 

 the fact that vertical branches given off near the 

 base of the stem are apt to become enclosed within 

 the bark, and so add considerably to the girth. 



As an evergreen, overshadowing the crops, the 

 Yew would do more harm than larger and perhaps 

 more valuable deciduous trees, and the herdsman 

 must soon have discovered that it was frequently 

 fatal to his cattle, so that it is not to be wondered at 

 that the species should have become less abundant in 

 our hedgerows than it once was. Bearing the stam- 

 inate and pistillate flowers on different trees, one 

 individual would moreover, if solitary, be unable to 

 reproduce itself by means of seed. 



There were, however, many cogent reasons why 

 some specimens of the tree should be preserved. 

 Ages before Christianity had invested the gloomy 

 evergreen with a glamour of superstitious veneration, 

 the fancies of the uneducated had, no doubt, sur- 

 rounded it with a halo of poetic romance ; but we 

 have no positive evidence connecting it with Druidical 

 worship. It is not improbable, however, that its 

 green boughs, " renewing their eternal youth," may 

 have been connected with the spring festival of 



