very small, their lovely crimson colour makes them quite con- Spring, 

 spicuous for those who look for them. The bracts grow steadily Careful Nut 

 through the summer, and form envelopes round the nuts, and Cultivation 

 these envelopes have the shape and often the colour of leaves. 



In cultivating Cob-nuts and Filberts for fruit-bearing pur- 

 poses, it is most essential to keep down suckers, the more tree- 

 like the plants, the more productive they are ; hence the 

 importance of removing all plants of any description from the 

 stem, and latent buds from the base and stems of seedlings. 

 The height of stem may vary from one foot to six feet. The 

 trees are classified according to the height of their stems as 

 standards, half standards, and dwarf standards, the natural or 

 many stemmed bush being generally termed a nut or filbert 

 stool. For beauty of growth along wood paths these are much 

 the prettiest, and if the soil is carefully prepared by trenching 

 and manuring they do well in almost any soil. A good deep 

 loam in a rather dry sunny position is what suits the Cob-nuts 

 best, as it encourages the production of short fruit-bearing wood. 

 During severe Winters the male blossoms are often injured by 

 frost. In other seasons and in certain localities, the cultivated 

 Filbert produces few catkins. In either case, these should be 

 collected from wild Hazel nuts, and suspended among the better 

 varieties. When planting, choose well-established suckers, or 

 layers, four or more years old. Firmly stake them as soon as 

 planted, and place a spadeful or two of manure on the soil over 

 the roots. The botanical name for the nut is Corylus, from 

 Korys, a hood or helmet, in reference to the calyx covering the 

 nut. This nut cultivation has led me into a long digression, 

 but I feel sorry to see nut trees so seldom grown with care. 

 All the Willow tribe have pretty flowers on the bare stems; 



B 9 



