NUTS. 269 



flowers, all blushing with their crimson stigmas, emerging 

 from oval scaly buds,* do not come forth to meet their 

 mates until the beginning of February. Sometimes it 

 happens that Nature has not duly attended to the balance 

 of the sexes, and the spring flowers come out in all their 

 gay attire to find that no sober-suited partners have been 

 provided for them. In this case, as when nobler beings 

 are similarly situated, it is by immigration that the equi- 

 librium must be restored. The discovery of this expedient 

 is due to the Rev. GL Swayne, who, possessing a number 

 of Filbert-trees which for 20 years had borne scarcely any 

 fruit, at length suspected the reason of their unproduc- 

 tiveness, and gathering a number of male catkins from, 

 wild Hazel-trees, suspended them in the upper branches of 

 his trees, a plan which proved so effectual that he gathered 

 more fruit from them- in that one year than he had during 

 the whole 20 previous years, even though a few which had 

 been left untouched, in order to test the experiment, had 

 produced but their usual scanty harvest. This system 

 has been found to produce crops even from old stunted 

 trees which for many years had never borne a single 

 nut. 



The Hazel is a native of all the temperate climates of 

 Europe and Asia. It develops but slowly, the germina- 

 tion of the seed not taking place until the second year 

 after it has been planted, and when its full growth is 

 attained, if left to Nature, is but a bush. Art, however, 

 has found means, by confining it to a single stem, to 

 elevate it into a tree ; but the force of example is needed 

 to induce this, for it does not take place unless the young 

 scion be planted among other trees of naturally taller 

 growth, when, thriving beneath the shade of its more 

 eminent companions, it is drawn up by them to emulate 

 their loftier proportions, and attains a height of even 30 ft. 

 with a trunk a foot in diameter. The fruit, though, in 

 such cases, is sacrificed to the timber. The spreading 

 habit of its roots was early noticed, and drew upon it the 

 ill-will of the Romans, manifested in a way which seems 



* See Plate I., fig. la. 



