Yew logs

Yew logs are logs obtained from cutting yew trees, which require at least level 60 Woodcutting for players to cut. However, many players wait until level 70 or higher as the progress of cutting yew trees is very slow, even at higher levels. The fastest way to cut yews is by using a dragon hatchet and having a woodcutting level of 80 or greater. This will get you an entire inventory in about 12–15 minutes. They give 175 experience when cut with a regular hatchet, 350 experience when cut with a Sacred Clay Hatchet, and 385 when cut with a Volatile clay hatchet. Players would need to cut 63,016 yew logs to go from 60 to 99 woodcutting. Players can also burn these logs with the Firemaking skill. They give 202.5 experience when burned. They are currently the highest level of logs available to free players and as such, cutting them can be a good way to make money as a free player. One full inventory of Yew logs gives exactly 4,900 Woodcutting experience (9,800 with sacred clay hatchet; 10,780 with volatile clay hatchet). Cutting and selling one full inventory of Yew logs would make coins on the Grand Exchange. Yew tree locations are relatively few and scattered and also tend to be extremely crowded in free-to-play worlds. However, in a members' world there is a better chance of finding a less crowded location.

Yew logs can also be used to travel to Castle Wars on the Balloon Transport System.

Yew trees are popular targets of macroing programs due to the large profit their logs would give when sold. These macros could be commonly found being used in F2P worlds, especially south of Falador, north of the Varrock Castle, the forest between Lumbridge and Draynor Village, and south of Melzar's Maze. However, macroing of Yew trees in P2P worlds is still a common sight.

Yew logs and the economy
Yew logs are usually in high demand from players who are trying to train Fletching. Yew logs increased in price due to Jagex's updates aiming to eliminate the use of bots. The value of yew logs is mainly driven by the high alchemy value of Yew longbows (768 coins), which will pay almost completely for the yew logs and the nature runes needed to alchemize them, assuming you supply your own bowstrings.

With the advent of the Grand Exchange, trading Yew logs became easier, but much more competitive. Yew logs began to rise in price as buyers offered higher than their median fair market value on the Grand Exchange. This rapid climb led to the Grand Exchange price adjustment, which attempted to quell the price of them. Yew logs are as of now the best way to make money with woodcutting since magic logs, though worth more money per log, are far slower than yews.

Since the market value on the Grand Exchange is ever shifting, getting a reasonable price for yew logs can be challenging, but since they are the highest logs available in F2P they remain a good source of profit. Finding an uncontested spot for cutting yews can be extremely difficult due to the popularity of the logs, making cutting yews with anything less than a rune hatchet infeasible.

When the Trade and Drop update occurred on 10 December 2007, yew-cutting bots were nearly eliminated from the game. This caused the price of yew logs to drastically rise in the days immediately following. However, when many people began selling at the lowest possible price, the yew log market crashed, causing a sudden price drop of more than 100 coins.

Later, yew log prices began to rise again, eventually reaching a high of 560 coins each in September 2009. The yew log price fell for a while up to about 375 coins in the beginning of February 2011. Due to free trade update, the amount of bots had increased. The amount of them increased in such amount that the competition over the same yew trees has caused the log gathering speed per player to lower dramatically. That caused the price of yew logs to rise to coins.