FILBERT. 175 



obtained from trees grown on a sandy, loamy soil, with a dry 

 bottom. On very rich soils it grows too much to wood, on 

 very poor soils the fruit ripens prematurely. Fig orchards 

 should be planted about twenty feet apart, and cultivated be- 

 tween the trees, till they nearly cover the ground. Never 

 speak of your figs blooming : they never flower, to the eye ; 

 and the mode of fructifying is rather a speculation, even in 

 the present day. " There is something very singular in the 

 fructification of the Fig : it has no visible flower, for the fruit 

 arises immediately from the joints of the tree, in the form of 

 little buds, with a perforation at the end, but not opening or 

 showing anything like petals or the ordinary parts of fructifi- 

 cation. As the Fig enlarges, the flower comes to maturity in 

 concealment, and in eastern countries the fruit is improved by 

 a singular operation called caprification. This is performed by 

 suspending by threads, above the cultivated figs, branches of 

 the wild fig, which are full of a species of cynips. When the 

 insect has become winged, it quits the wild Fig and penetrates 

 the cultivated ones, for the purpose of laying its eggs ; and 

 thus it appears both to insure the fructification by dispersing 

 the pollen, and afterwards to hasten the ripening by punctur- 

 ing the pulp and causing a change of the nutricious juices. In 

 France this operation is imitated by inserting straws dipped 

 in olive oil." — Lib. of Ent. Knowledge. 



Pruning. — '• The more you prune the less the crop," is pro- 

 verbial in Fig culture. All that is required is to shorten any 

 irregular or overgrowing shoot, and cut out dead wood, of 

 which more or less will show itself every few years. 



FILBERT. 



C&rylus Avelldna. — Noisette, Fr. — Nussbaum, Grer. 

 The common Hazel Nut will never be an article of profit to 

 the American gardener or husbandman ; yet we introduce the 



