AMENTIFERZ. ives 
never that he was the father of slanders; or are men’s tongues so given to slandering 
one another, that they must slander nuts too, to keep their tongues in useP If any- 
thing of the hazel-nut be stopping, ’tis the husks and shells, and nobody is so mad to 
eat them, unless physically, and the red skin which covers the kernel, which you may 
easily pull off. And thus I have made an apology for nuts, which cannot speak for 
themselves.” 
In its wild state the hazel affords protection and food to many little wild animals 
and birds. The squirrel and dormouse feed on the nuts with avidity. The nut- 
hatch, a bird not larger than the sparrow, belonging to the tribe Scansores, carries 
them off singly, and fixes them in the crevice of an oak or some other rough-barked 
tree, taking his position above, and head downwards, hammers away with his strong 
beak until he has made an irregular angular hole. Many nuts are made utterly 
worthless by a beautiful little beetle (Balaninus nucwm) which in early summer lays 
within the tender shell of a nut a single egg, which when the kernel is approaching 
maturity, is hatched into a small grub. This, when the period of transformation to 
the pupa state is approaching, eats its way through the shell, and falling to the 
ground, buries itself, and constructs a cell, from which it comes forth in the following 
season as a perfect insect. As a timber tree, the wood of the hazel is never of 
sufficient size for building purposes, but it is used for cabinet-making and in small and 
delicate productions. It is tender, pliant, of a whitish-red colour, and of a close, even, 
and full grain; but it does not take a very bright polish. The roots, when they are 
of sufficient size, afford curiously veined pieces, which are used in veneering cabinets, 
&c. The great use of the hazel, however, is for undergrowth. Being extremely 
tough and flexible, the root-shoots are used for making crates, hurdles, hoops, wattles, 
walking-sticks, fishing-rods, whip handles, and for withs and bands for general pur- 
poses. A strong fence is made by driving stakes into the ground, and interlacing 
them with hazel-rods. Evelyn tells us that outhouses and even cottages were some- 
times made in this manner. Hazel-rods varnished form an admirable material for 
rustic garden-seats and flower-baskets. Fagots of hazel are in great demand for 
heating ovens; and the charcoal, which is very light, is considered excellent for’ 
gunpowder ; itis also used for making crayons for drawing, being for that purpose 
charred in closed iron tubes. As an ornamental tree, when trained to a single stem, the 
hazel forms a very handsome object for a lawn or park. It is a pleasing and early 
herald of the ring’s approach, the yellowish green catkins presenting perhaps the 
earliest symptoms of vegetable expansion. The fruit-bearing buds do not show them- 
selyes till later, when they burst, and disclosing the bright crimson of their shafts, look 
extremely beautiful. It not only retains its leaves a long time in autumn, after they 
have assumed a rich yellow colour, but as soon as they drop they discover the nearly 
fully grown male catkins, which often come into full flower at the end of October, 
and remain on the tree in that state throughout the winter, and in days of bright 
sunshine in February and March, when slightly moved by the wind, they have a gay 
and most enlivening appearance. Sir Thomas D. Lauder says, “The hazel, besides 
making up a prominent part of many a grove in the happiest manner, and tufting 
and fringing the sides of many a ravine, often presents us with very picturesque 
stems and ramifications. Then, when we think of the lovely scenes into which the 
careless steps of our youth have been led in search of its nuts, when antumn had 
begun to brown the points of their clusters, we are bound to it by threads of the most 
delightful associations, with those beloved ones who were the companions of such idle 
but happy days.” The poetical allusions to the hazel are very frequent. Virgil 
mentions it, and the old troubadours and French romance-writers have scarcely a 
