270 OUR COMMON FEUITS. 



almost to savour of petty malice ; for believing that its 

 subterranean incursions made it injurious to vines, the 

 entrails of the goats which were sacrificed to Bacchus on 

 account of their vineyard depredations were always roasted 

 upon Hazel spits. If the jolly god had ever tried Filberts 

 with his Falernian, and they had harmonized but half as 

 well as they do with sherry, so far from countenancing 

 such an indignity being offered to the plant, he would 

 surely have 



"Abhorred the sacrifice and cursed the priest." 



The Hazel Nuts brought to our tables are mostly of 

 foreign growth, the common " Spanish," or superior " Bar- 

 celona." The latter, however, do not come exactly from 

 the place whose name they bear, but are mostly shipped 

 at Tarragona, a port a little to the south of it. An enor- 

 mous quantity are annually imported to this country, and 

 a still greater impetus having been given to the trade 

 some years ago by the reduction of the duty to only Is. 

 per bushel, in 1862 nuts were imported here to the 

 value of above 170,000. Nuts of this kind have some- 

 times been made into bread, and into puddings, little if 

 at all inferior to those composed of almonds, and a sort 

 of chocolate has also been prepared from them. 



The home-grown fruit of the species which is in most 

 esteem is the long-calyxed Filbert, a name supposed by 

 some to have been derived from " full beard," in allusion 

 to that appendage ; while others incline to the more po- 

 etical etymology assigned by Grower in his Confessio 

 Amantis : 



"Phillis 



Was shape into a nutte-tree 

 That all men it might see, 

 And after 1'hillis, Philberd 

 This tree was cleped." 



One variety, however, is called " Lambert Nut," a name 

 'Considered to be a corruption of the Grerman " Long-bart 

 Nuss," or long-bearded nut. The Filbert is a thoroughly 

 English fruit, and grows to greatest perfection about 

 Maidstone, where it is sometimes planted between rows 

 of fruit-trees in orchards ; but when grown for the sake 



