172 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
bony shell of a light brown color, roughish at base, where it 
adheres, while immature, to itscap. This is an involucre of 
two broad leaves, much larger than the nut, green and fleshy 
when young, inflated at base, covered with coarse, glandular 
hair, deeply and irregularly cut, fringed on the compressed bor- 
der, and turning grayish brown, when mature. 
The hazel grows readily in dry, or moist, light soil, by the 
sides of woods or walls. The fruit varies much in quality in 
different places. In taste, it is fully equal to the filbert, and by 
many persons it is preferred. The finest specimens of it are 
equal to the filbert in size; if these were selected, and carefully 
cultivated, they would, as all other fruits have been found to 
do, with similar treatment, improve in quality. In England, 
the filbert is much cultivated, and is sometimes a very produc- 
tive crop. Miller says that its qualities can only be preserved 
by propagating by suckers, or layers. The same methods might 
be used for our hazel. By selecting the largest, finest, and ear- 
liest nuts, sowing them in the most propitious soil, and selecting 
from those plants which soonest come to bearing, the most pro- 
mising nuts, for seed, and thus constantly repeating the opera- 
tion, the size, productiveness, and flavor of the fruit would, 
doubtless, be greatly improved. The improved varieties might 
be easily propagated by suckers, of which it is the nature of 
the hazel to throw out great numbers. 
There are many road sides and borders of fields which might 
be planted with the hazel, from whence, with little expense, a 
desirable addition to the table might be raised, which children 
could be employed to gather. Hazel-gathering is, even now, in 
some parts of New England, a pleasant little festival for child- 
ren; and the remembrances of the nooks among the woods, 
and the thickets along the river banks, to which the search for 
nuts leads, are not unwelcome, in graver and busier years. 
The common hazel is found from Canada to Florida, and 
through the Western States. 
The plant is too small to be of much service, though it may 
possibly have as much virtue as the European species of which 
Evelyn writes: ‘The coals are used by painters to draw with, 
like those of sallow: lastly, for riding switches, and divinatory 
