76 NUT CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



David Smith, Meadow: "Different from the hazelimt; people here call them 

 filberts. These bushes grow as much as 30 feet long, and are found as much as 6 inches 

 through at the butt. They are tough, and are used for withes. We twist them like 

 eastern hickory while hazel is very brittle. The nuts are found usually one in a 

 place, sometimes two; the nuts never grow in bunches or clusters as hazel nuts." 

 [Probably Corylus Galifornica.} 



Tennessee. John C. Chilton, Otto: "Have noticed a choice wild variety, very 

 large and of fine flavor." (PI. 13, figs. 14-16.) 



Wisconsin. George P. Peffer, Pewaukee: "Long Shocks (a local name), an 

 oblong, very thin-shelled nut." 



Washington. T. J. May, Mount Vernon : " Hazelnuts flourish here as in no other 

 country that I ever saw; they are native and grow all through the timber. They 

 grow on trees instead of bushes; many of them growing to the height of 50 or 60 feet 

 and to the diameter of 4 or 5 inches. They grow so tall and slender that they bend 

 over and others sprout up and bend over, and still others until there is a great cluster, 

 all bending outward. They bear well when they get enough sunlight, and it is evi- 

 dent that they do not require a great deal." In June, 1891, Mr. May sent young, 

 growing wood, foliage and nuts, also mature wood growth, and says: " Since writing 

 you before, I have seen a tree that measures 6| inches in diameter. It bears fruit in 

 clusters; the size of fruit about the same as that of Eastern States and quality as 

 good." 



THE CHESTNUTS. 



(Castanea Tourn.) 



The name Castanea is believed to have been derived from Kastanea, a city in 

 Pontus, Asia Minor, where the chestnut is native, or from a city of the same name 

 in Thessaly, where it seems to have been first introduced into Europe. 1 This tree, 

 the so-called European chestnut, has by some been considered indigenous to Great 

 Britain and the continent of Europe, but the evidence all points to its introduction 

 into Greece from Asia Minor, thence to Italy by the Romans, and to its gradual 

 dissemination throughout southern and western Europe. It has for centuries grown 

 wild in Italy, France, Spain, and Great Britain. Botanists have long disputed 

 whether the chestnuts of America and Japan are varieties of the European species 

 or are themselves worthy of specific rank. From a pomological standpoint the dif- 

 ferences are so marked that we shall in our discussion regard them as three distinct 

 species. 



The male flowers of the chestnut are produced in the axils of successive or 

 alternate leaves, in early June, in cylindrical catkins as long or longer than the leaves. 

 They appear after the leaves are nearly grown, later than the bloom of most other 

 trees. The pollen is usually abundant and fragrant, in some cases so much so as to 

 cause hay fever in persons subject to that disease. The female flowers are borne in 

 four-pointed burs on stiff spikes that grow from the axils of the leaves on the extended 

 shoot. They are thus developed later and on younger wood than the male blossoms. 

 At the time of blooming the burs are about half an inch long, and in most cases but 

 from one to three flowers near the base of the spike produce fruits. The lower portion 

 of the stock becomes woody, and a portion beyond them shrinks and drops off, leaving 

 the burs as a terminal cluster. Barely trees of the American chestnut have the habit 

 of maturing the fruit from all, or nearly all, the female flowers along the entire spike. 2 



1 See London, Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, Vol. 11, page 1983. 



a ln the Division of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture there is preserved a record and 

 specimens of fruit from a tree in Pennsylvania which has this habit. 



