FILBERT OB HAZELNUT. 125 



pecfced to attain. Those varieties which assume and 

 remain in the bush form may be planted very close to- 

 gether, or not more than six to eight feet between the 

 plants ; but those which become small trees must be 

 given more room. The larger European sorts, which 

 are at present the only ones worth cultivating for their 

 nuts, should be set ten or twelve feet apart, and the 

 rows fifteen to sixteen feet, then if properly pruned they 

 will shade the ground and be in a convenient form for 

 gathering the crop. The trees may be planted in the 

 orchard when quite small, and some kind of vegetable 

 crop grown among them, for the first two or three years, 

 but I would prefer keeping the plants in nursery rows 

 until they were four or five feet high, and then trans- 

 plant to the orchard, and set a short, stout stake by the 

 side of each, to keep the main stem in an upright posi- 

 tion until the tree is well established. 



The first pruning, except removing suckers from 

 those in the nursery rows, will be the heading back of 

 the main or central stem to a bight of two or three 

 feet, for the purpose of laying the foundation, as it 

 were, of the head of the future tree. Three or four of 

 the larger branches, which will push out from near the 

 top of the severed main stem, are to be selected to form 

 the top, and all others removed. Small lateral branches 

 or twigs will spring out from the larger or main ones, 

 and in this way the head of a bearing tree is formed. 

 But before attempting to prune a mature or fruitful 

 tree, we must consider the mode of fructification, for 

 the filbert does not bear nuts on the young growth of 

 the season, as in the chestnut, but on the small branch- 

 lets or spur-like twigs of the preceding season, or, as we 

 may say, on the one-year-old twigs. The small fruiting 

 twigs are seldom more than four to six inches long, and 

 sometimes almost every well-developed bud on these con- 

 tain pistillate flowers and embryo nuts, either singly or 



