A SMOOTH DENSE PYRAMID OF ENGLISH YEW IN AN OLD MARYLAND GARDEN 



In company with other examples of topiary work executed in other evergreen material this 

 specimen has grown old in the colonial garden of Farmlands, just outside Baltimore, Md. 



n 



THE ROMANCE OF OUR TREES-IV. THE YEW ] 



ERNEST H. WILSON 



Assistant Director, Arnold Arboretum 



By Some Curious Twist Symbolically Associated with the Peace of Death, This Is the 

 Tree That Was Most Vital to the National Safety and Warfare Strength in the Days 

 of Longbowman and Archer, When Its Wood Furnished the Chief "Ordnance Materiel" 



[Editor's Note: The vivid interest attaching to this series of articles by Mr. Wilson, who draws from vast stores of 

 personal knowledge accumulated on his long journeys to the far places of the earth {for the sole purpose of hunting plants 

 for introduction to our gardens), deepens with each successive story; for each reveals further the richly intricate pattern wherein 

 man and his little enterprises have been interwoven by Time with the great silent, mysterious things of Nature] 



The next article in this series will deal with the Horsechestnut. 



|HE discovery of gunpowder may at first sight appear 

 to have little to do with the planting of trees in gen- 

 eral and the Yew in particular, but as a matter of 

 fact the connection is close. For prior to the in- 

 troduction and general use of gunpowder the peoples of the 

 world used bows and arrows ; and in temperate regions where 

 the Yew grows the best bows were made of the wood of this 

 tree. In general, archery is now regarded as a pastime 

 though certain simple people like the Ainos of Hokkaido 

 and Saghalien still use the bow in the chase. The sport is 

 beloved by the Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese; in the west 



associations and clubs have been founded to preserve it, 

 and in Great Britain it is a favorite with women. 



But if archery be now regarded as merely a healthy pastime 

 its role in the grim affairs of human history has been among 

 the greatest. With the story of William Tell every schoolboy 

 of the west is familiar and the appreciation of the skill of 

 this Swiss archer has lost nothing through lapse of time, 

 for whether fact or fiction William Tell typifies sturdy pa- 

 triotism's stand against tyranny and aggression. The long- 

 bow and the cross-bow are famous in history. Were not 

 the battles of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt mainly won by 



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