The Filbert. 253 



elegantly striated. The next best, the Cob-nut, Corylus 

 Avellana, var. grandis, is marked by its short and ovoid 

 figure and very thick shell. To get good crops the trees 

 must not be left to themselves. An excellent mode of 

 culture, practised in Kent, is to rear the plant, in the first 

 instance, from a sucker, allow it to grow without restraint 

 for three years, then to cut it down to within a few inches 

 of the ground. New and vigorous shoots are soon pro- 

 duced; these are shortened to a third of their length, and 

 a hoop is placed inside, to which the shoots are made fast, 

 the result being the formation of a goblet, seldom more 

 than six feet high, of the same diameter, and very fruitful. 

 The cultivated varieties are apt to be deficient in catkins. 

 Hence, when the bushes are in bloom, it is useful to cut 

 branches loaded with catkins from the wild hazel, and to 

 suspend them in such a way that the pollen may fall 

 upon the awaiting stigmas. Both in the wild and the 

 cultivated plant the catkins of the Avellana are prone 

 to be ready to discharge their pollen before the pistils 

 make their appearance. This would seem to indicate 

 that a degree of temperature lower than is needed by the 

 female flowers suffices for the staminate ones. When 

 the spring becomes suddenly warm, it is very interesting 

 to observe how much less time intervenes between the 

 full development of the two forms of flower, the staminate 

 and the female, and how much heavier is the subsequent 

 crop of fruit. 



Besides the Avellana, we have in cultivation in Eng- 

 land, as a curiosity, the Byzantine or Constantinople hazel, 



