HAZEL 25 



care in the Spring, drawing from it good or bad omens 

 for the harvest, and it is still a general belief that a good 

 nut year is also -a good wheat year. For centuries the 

 hazel rod was held- to possess' powers of divination, and 

 it was employed to discover hidden treasure or subterranean 

 springs, and to detect criminals. Grasped lightly in the 

 hand it was thought to turn by some occult power and 

 thus indicate the object sought. The hazel grows wild 

 all over temperate Europe and in many districts in Asia, 

 so that we must not run away with the idea that " going 

 nutting " is at all an exclusively British pastime. The 

 demand for the fruit is immense, and thousands of bushels 

 are brought each year to our shores from Spain, Italy, and 

 Syria to supplement our home supply. The nuts grow 

 ordinarily in small clusters of two or three together, and 

 each is surrounded by an envelope of scales, united at their 

 bases and deeply jagged and lobed. These are the now 

 much enlarged scales that heretofore protected the little 

 flowers in the boisterous days of March. This envelope 

 or enclosing cup, together with the nut therein, presently 

 turns brown, a sign of approaching maturity of the nut, and 

 when it is fully ripe it falls out of this cup. Such nuts 

 are by the rustics called " slip-shucks." These nuts, so 

 freely provided by the bounty of Nature, are not delect- 

 able to the genus boy alone, but supply most welcome 

 provender to several kinds of birds — as, for example, the 

 nuthatch — that are armed with sufficiently strong beaks 

 to pierce the woody shells, while squirrels, notably, and 

 divers other small animals find them most acceptable for 

 a present feast, and still more invaluable for storage 

 in view of the coming days when the rich abundance of 



