TABi.K I'Kurr. 127 



TABLE FKUIT. 



FILBERTS. 



Is there any good reason why this excellent nut, so welcome as a part of every 

 dessert, should not be added to the list of our domestic productions? In Kent, 

 England, there are extensive and profitable orchards of filbcrt-trees — the cultiva- 

 tion of the tree being there well understood. This consists much in proper prun- 

 ing. The filbert, says a writer in the Journal of the Agricultural Society of 

 Scotland, is but an improved hazel — the latter being the wild original to the 

 former, as the crab to our improved apples. The filbert being an accidental va- 

 riety, produced by cultivation, cannot be certainly propagated or reproduced by 

 sowing the nut — that is the seeds; for not one in ten of the plants raised from 

 seed would prove filberts, but common hazel-nuts only. To insure the true va- 

 riety, says the same Avritcr, the young trees should be raised from layers, and 

 these, after being rowed out in nursery order for two or three years, in which 

 time they are trained to one upright shoot of not less than three feet high, all 

 suckers and branches on the lower part of the stem being constantly removed. — 

 The trees, says the same writer, after being planted in their final stations, are 

 headed down to about eighteen inches from the ground. This bight will admit 

 ol'a clear stem of about 12 inches below, and which part must be ever afterward 

 kept clear from shoots. This removal of shoots and suckers will cause the buds 

 at top to shoot with greater vigor. If, according to the directions of this writer, 

 eight strong shoots be produced in the first summer, they must be carefully pre- 

 served, as that number will be required to form the head ; but if less than this 

 number come forth, then tAvo or three of the strongest must be shortened back 

 to half their length at the next pruning, in order to obtain the requisite number. 



A sufficient number of branches being obtained, if not in the first, certainly a}\er 

 the second pruning, they are to be carefully preserved and trained outward ar.d 

 upward into the due position, to form the permanent branches. In England, 

 the branches are allowed to rise to the hight of four feet — never higher ; and the 

 middle of the tree, or rather bush, is always kept free from shoots — so that a 

 well-trained head resembles a large bowl. 



It is added that the easiest mode to give the tree this shape is by using a hoop 

 of the proper size, placed within the shoots, and to which the limbs are tied at 

 equal tAvelve-inch distances, in divergent order ; and this may serve as a practical 

 hint for giving that or other form, where it may be desirable, to other trees or 

 bushes, either useful or ornamental. Such lateral and curving position may be 

 assisted by a careful pruner always cutting at an outside bud, which, when pro- 

 longed, first outward, naturally turns upward into the due position to forip per- 

 manent branches. In our country, however, it would be sufficient to restrain the 

 tendency of these stoling plants (so called from their tendency to increase them- 

 selves by numerous suckers from the roots) to run into loo much wood, by de- 

 priving them of their suckers, and thus induce a stronger expansion (as is done 

 with other fruit-trees) of the fructiferous branches. 



We are not aware of the grocery-store prices of filberts. 



Being visited at the instant of writing thus far by a bevy of ladies, to go and 

 walk over the classic grounds about old Fort l\conderoga, we begged to be es- 



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