JANUARY 11 



but it has to be done, and when summer side-twigs 

 have grown and leafed, it will be fairly well clothed, 

 and meanwhile the Hellebores will be the better for 

 the thinner shade. 



The nut-catkins are already an inch long, but are 

 tightly closed; and there is no sign as yet of the bright 

 crimson little sea-anemones that will appear next 

 month, whose bases will grow into nut-bearing twigs. 

 Round the edges of the base of the stools are here and 

 there little branching suckers. These are the ones to 

 look out for, to pull off and grow into young trees. A 

 firm grasp and a sharp tug brings them up with a fine 

 supply of good fibrous root. After two years in the 

 nursery they are just right to plant out. 



The trees in the nut-walk were grown in this way 

 fourteen years ago, from small suckers pulled off plants 

 that came originally from the interesting cob-nut 

 nursery at Calcot, near Reading. 



I shall never forget a visit to that nursery some six- 

 and-twenty years ago. It was walled all round, and a 

 deep-sounding bell had to be rung many times before 

 any one came to open the gate; but at last it was 

 opened by a fine, strongly-built, sunburnt woman of the 

 type of the good working farmer's wife, that I remem- 

 ber as a child. She was the forewoman, who worked 

 the nursery with surprisingly few hands — only three 

 men, if I remember rightly — but she looked as if she 

 could do the work of " all two men " herself. One of 

 the specialties of the place was a fine breed of mastiffs; 



