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 
raore 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 
