372 



TAX ACE JE. 



dred and eighty of these, according to Loudon, having 

 been counted in a piece of wood of not more than twenty 

 inches in diameter. 



In the earlier part of our history the principal appli- 

 cation of the wood of the Yew was to the manufacture 

 of bows, long the most formidable weapon of the English, 

 and in the management of which they always evinced 

 superior skill ; on this account, as we have already re- 

 marked, the tree was fostered and protected by our an- 

 cestors, and archery encouraged by the edicts of several 

 of our monarchs. From authors who have written upon 

 the subject we learn that the English bow, up to a certain 

 period, was made of a single piece of wood, varying from 

 four to six feet in length, the ends tipped with horn to 

 retain the string, as at the present day, but without any 

 felt or other substance wrapped round the middle to sup- 

 port the hand. Roger Ascham, the author of " Tox- 

 ophiles, 11 a curious and amusing treatise on this subject 

 published in 1544, tells us that " every bowe is made 

 of the boughe, the plante, or the boole. The boughe is 

 knotty and full of pruines ; the plante is quick enough 

 of caste, but is apt to break ; and the boole is the best." 

 He afterwards gives the following directions how to select 

 a bow : — " If you come into a shoppe and fynde a bowe 

 that is small, longe, heavye, stronge, lyinge streighte, not 

 wyndynge, nor marred with knottes, gaule, wyndshake, 

 wem, freat, or pinch, bye that bowe on my warrant.'''' When 

 fire-arms became more generally introduced, and the bow 

 ceased to be vised as a war weapon, the cultivation and 

 care of the Yew seem to have been speedily abandoned, 

 as wood fit for the manufacture soon after appears to 

 have become very scarce, for we find that towards the 

 end of the sixteenth century, in consequence of this de- 



