OF SELBORNE. 
325 
While mention is making of the bad effefts of yew-berries, it 
may be proper to remind the unwary that the twigs and leaves of 
yew, though eaten in a very fmall quantity, are certain death to 
horfes and cows, and that in a few minutes. An horfe tied to a 
yew-hedge, or to a faggot-ftack of dead yew, fliall be found dead 
before the owner can be aware that any danger is at hand : and 
the writer has been feveral times a forrowful witnefs to lofles of 
this kind among his friends ; and in the ifland of Ely had once the 
mortification to fee nine young fleers or bullocks of his own all 
lying dead in an heap from browzing a little on an hedge of yew 
in an old garden, into which they had broken in fnowy weather. 
Even the clippings of a yew-hedge have deftroyed a whole dairy 
of cov/s when thrown inadvertently into a yard. And yet flieep 
and turkies, and, as park-keepers fay, deer, will crop thefe trees 
with Impunity. 
Some intelligent perfons aflert that the branches of yew, while 
green, are not noxious ; and that they will kill only when dead and 
withered, by lacerating the ftomach : but to this afiertion we cannot 
by any means alTent, becaufe, among the number of cattle that we 
have known fall vidims to this deadly food, not one has been 
found, when it was opened, but had a lum.p of green yew in it's 
paunch. True it is, that yew-trees ftand for twenty years or more 
in a field, and no bad confequences enfue : but at fome time or 
other cattle, either from wantonnefs when full, or from hunger 
when empty, (from both which circumftances we have feen them 
perifh) will be meddling, to their certain deftrudion ; the yew 
feems to be a very improper tree for a pafture-field. 
Antiquaries feem much at a lofs to determine at what period 
this tree firft obtained a place in church-yards. A flatute pafTed 
A. D. 1307 and 35 Edward I. the title of which is " Ne redlor 
*' arbor 63 
