460 



THE CULTIVATION OF THE FILBERT. 



ner, by selecting a sufficient number of the \ 

 main branches, and then cutting the side 

 shoots offnearly close, excepting any should 

 be so situated as not to interfere with the 

 others, and there should be no main branch 

 directed to that particular part. It will, 

 however, be two or three years before the 

 full effect will be produced. 



But though this method of cultivation has 

 long been celebrated, yet it does not appear 

 to me so particularly successful as to de- 

 serve the encomiums which have been be- 

 stowed upon it ; for though thirty hundred 

 weight per acre have been grown in parti- 

 cular grounds, and in particular years, yet 

 twenty hundred weight is considered a 

 large crop, and rather more than half that 

 quantity may be called a more usual one ; 

 and even then, the crop totally fails three 

 years out of five ; so that the annual ave- 

 rage quantity cannot be reckoned at more 

 than five hundred weight per acre. 



When I reflected upon the reason of the 

 failure happening so often as three years 

 out of five, it occurred to me, that possibly 

 it might arise from the excessive produc- 

 tiveness of the other two, the whole nou- 

 rishment of the trees being expended in the 

 production of the fruit ; and that, conse- 

 quently, they might be unable properly to 

 mature the blossom for the following year. 

 We know that peach and nectarine trees 

 may be so pruned, as to force them to bear 

 a superabundant quantity of fruit in some 

 one year ; but we find that a regular crop 

 in succession is thereby prevented, and 

 that too for several years. In order to en- 

 sure fruit every year, I have usually left a 

 large proportion of those shoots, which, 

 from their strength, I suspected would not 

 be so productive of blossom buds, as the 

 shorter ones ; leaving them more in a state 

 of nature than is commonly done ; not 

 pruning them so closely as to weaken the 



trees by excessive bearing, nor leaving 

 them so entirely to their natural growth, as 

 to cause their annual productiveness to be 

 destroyed by a superfluity of wood. These 

 shoots, in the spring of the year, I have 

 usually shortened to a blossom bud, for the 

 reason before given. The great art of 

 pruning is to produce the greatest quantity 

 of fruit without injury to the crop of the 

 succeeding year, which, in my opinion, is 

 not done by the Kentish method. But by 

 observing the rule which I have laid down, 

 though the trees do not perhaps bear so 

 great a weight in any one year, as by the 

 method before detailed ; yet the crops in 

 the whole certainly are not less ; with this 

 great advantage both to the public and pri- 

 vate grower, that a moderate but regular 

 crop is ensured in every successive year. 

 I think that by this plan the average weight 

 in the whole will be greater. In the year 

 1819, which was a very productive one, 

 I grew two hundred weight of filberts, 

 (weighed when gathered,) upon fifty-seven 

 trees, the greater part of which were not 

 above six years old, (reckoning from the 

 time of their being cut down,) and growing 

 upon three hundred and sixty square yards 

 of ground ; which is after the rate of twen- 

 ty-seven hundred weight per acre, and upon 

 part of the ground ten more trees are now 

 planted, which, if they had come to a 

 bearing state, would have increased the 

 quantity to more than is considered as 

 an extraordinary crop, besides having 

 grown upon the older trees a moderate but 

 regular quantity for several years preced- 

 ing. 



When the trees are grown on this plan, 

 it is necessary, in order to strengthen the 

 tree as much as possible, to eradicate the 

 suckers from the root ; this is effected by 

 exposing the roots, to a moderaie distance 

 from the stem, to the frosts of winter, and 



