FILBERT OE HAZELNUT. 145 



to be employed in fertilizing the pistillate flowers of the 

 culjtiTated yarieties, for by such means blight spores may 

 be readily introduced into orchard and garden. 



It will seldom be necessary to practice artificial fer- 

 tilisation, where any considerable number of trees are 

 grown near together, because if ninety per cent, of the 

 male catkins are winterkilled, the few remaining will be 

 suflBcient to supply pollen for the pistillate flowers. 

 In my grounds filberts have never failed to produce an- 

 nual crops after reaching a bearing age, although they 

 have been subjected to great extremes of temperature in 

 winter. One year the trees were in full bloom the last 

 week in February, and although cold weather followed, 

 the protected pistillate flowers were not injured. The 

 winters of 1894 and 1895 were among the severest, 

 in the way of continuous low temperature, I have ever 

 experienced here, and while the filberts did not bloom 

 until the first week in April, the crop proved to be 

 abundant. 



Insects Injurious to Filberts. — My personal ob- 

 servations lead me to believe that the filberts and hazels 

 are, in this country, remarkably free from the depreda- 

 tions of noxious insects. Two species of nut weevils 

 have been reported as breeding in the wild hazelnuts, 

 viz., Balaninus oUusus, and B. nasicus, but among 

 the many bushels of the European varieties of the filbert 

 produced in my grounds I have never found one infested 

 by a weevil or other insect. In Europe a ntit weevil 

 (B. nucum) is said to be very destructive to the wild 

 hazel, often invading the filbert orchards, and this 

 we can readily believe, because they are not at all un- 

 common in the imported nuts, but fortunately have not, 

 as yet, become naturalized in this country. 



The great hazel-leaf beetle, or as more generally 

 known, elm-leaf beetle {Monocesta coryli), has been 

 known in a few instances to attack and defoliate large 

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