62 
FLORA AND SYLVA 
to weather fits it for use as piles, posts, i to take them away, apart fi-om the gain 
and pumps, while in France the toughest I of showing the colour of the stems. 
Yews measuring 30 feet in girth and 
upwards are to be found at Hamspead 
Marshall, Berks, 47 feet ; Tisbury, 
Dorset, 301 feet ; South Hayling, 
Hants, 38 feet; Ankerwyke, Middle- 
sex, 35 feet ; Hambledon, Surrey, 39 
feet; Buxted,Surrey, 39feet; Ufcombe, 
Kent, 3 5 feet ; and at Kyre Park, 
Worcester, 32 feet. Many of these. 
axle trees are made from sections of the 
trunk. Even the lighter branches can 
be used as hoops and stakes, and from 
the young shoots are woven baskets 
which far outlast those of Willow. The 
wood is long in seasoning, but is so 
dense that it loses only one part in 
forty-eight of its bulk. Throughout 
the Middle Ages this wood was much 
valued for the making of bows which 
were the pride of the English archers 
of the period, but with the decline of 
archery came neglect of trees which, 
until then, had been jealously tended. 
It would take more than 
Old Yew Trees. , , , ^ 
the whole 01 r lora and 
Sylva to give an idea of the literature 
devoted to existing trees in Britain and 
in Normandy. There is much about 
them in Loudon's Arboj^etiun^ and the 
late Dr John Lowe, M.D., a learned 
and enthusiastic tree-lover, gave up the 
leisure of his retirement to the study 
of the Yew ; the result may be found 
in his book on the Tew T7^ees of 
Great Brita 'm aiid IfYla7id^w\\\c\\ will 
long remain a storehouse of information 
as to this tree. Many old Yews have 
only an antiquarian interest, but those 
who care for beauty should make a 
point of seeing old trees that show their 
stems, and these we can rarely find in 
gentlemen's places. Where trees are 
isolated, people have such a fear of 
cutting offthe lower boughs, even when 
half dead, that the stems even of fine 
trees are not well seen. It is a great 
mistake, for these lower boughs are 
often decaying and it benefits the tree 
The Buckland Yew (recently destroyed). 
and others, may be safely said to be up- 
wards of one thousand years old. 
The Yew as a The onc fault of our Native 
Poison. Cedar (as it well deserves 
to be called) is that it is charged with 
a poisonous sap which no deadly asp or 
chemical dose can surpass in virulence. 
Valuable animals are lost every year 
through eating the leaves, though the 
lesson is hard to impress upon stock- 
owners, and even when the danger is 
known the cattle sometimes escape into 
woods where Yews are scattered. The 
