360 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES 



berries, then ripe, were blown down into the road, where 

 the hogs ate them. And it was very remarkable, that 

 though barrow-hogs and young sows found no inconvenience 

 from this food, yet railch-sows often died after such a 

 repast : a circumstance that can be accounted for only by 

 supposing that the latter, being much exhausted and 

 hungry, devoured a larger quantity. 



While mention is making of the bad eflfects of yew-berries, 

 it may be proper to remind the unwary that the twigs and 

 leaves of yew, though eaten in a very small quantity, are 

 certain death to horses and cows, and that in a few minutes. 

 A horse tied to a yew-hedge, or to a aggot-stack of dead 

 yew, shall be found dead before the owner can be aware 

 that any danger is at hand ; and the writer has been 

 several times a sorrowful witness to losses of this kind 

 among his friends ; and in the island of Ely had once the 

 mortification to see nine young steers or bullocks of his own 

 all lying dead in a heap from browsing a 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 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 



