v.] OF SELBORNE. 479 
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 inadver- 
tently 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 
OR/VVKSTONE TO GILBERT WHITE. EAST END OF CHURCHYARD 
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 conse- 
quences ensue : but at some time or other cattle, either from 
wantonness when full, or from hunger when empty (from both 
which circumstances we have seen them perish), will be 
meddling, to their certain destruction ; the yew seems to be a 
very improper tree for a pasture field. 
