Instead of troubling you with a particular answer to MR. WARDE'S inquiry,
let me refer him to the _Forest Trees of Britain_, by the Rev. C. A. Johns,
p 297. _et seq._, where, among many other curious and interesting facts, he
will find the various reasons assigned by different authors, ancient and
modern, for the plantation of yew-trees in churchyards. I do not find,
however, that the origin ingeniously assigned by MR. WARDE is among the
number.
[Phi].
I have always supposed, but I know not upon what authority, that the custom
of planting yew-trees in churchyards originated in the idea of supplying
the yeomen of the parish with bows, in the good old archery days.