310 



CASSELL'S POPTJLAK GARDENING. 



Ophir — rich vermilion ; 



limb spotted with black 



and yellow. 

 Peronilla — deep carmine ; 



limb dotted with purple 



and maroon. 

 Polymnie — tube white ; 



limb scarlet, spotted with 



carmine. 

 Eachel — a rich scarlet, 



streaked and spotted with 



deep purple. 



Eio Carotte — tube orange- 

 scarlet ; limb yellow, spot- 

 ted with orange. 



Seraph — tube purple ; limb 

 white, spotted with rich 

 crimson. 



Tricolor — tube coral - red ; 

 limb white, spotted with 

 light purple. 



Wonder — brilliant orange- 

 scarlet, streaked with 

 purplish-black. 



Zingiber. — This genus gives its name to the 

 order Zingiber acece ; the roots of one species, Z. offici- 

 nale, yielding the ginger of commerce. There are 

 numerous kinds, but very few are in cultivation. 

 Treatment same as for Curcuma. Stove. 



Z. officinale is a slender- 

 growiag plant,with Grassy 

 or Eeed-like stems ; leaves 

 lineai'-lanceolate, smooth, 

 and pale green; the 

 flowers are surrounded 

 with bracts, and are pro- 

 duced in oblong spikes; 

 bright red. Summer 

 months. East Indies. 



Z, Parishii — stems slender, 



Eeed-like, and leafy, two 

 to three feet high ; leaves 

 lanceolate-acute and deep 

 green; spike cylindrical ; 

 flowers pale yellow, tessel- 

 lated on the lower part 

 with purplish - brown ; 

 bracts yellowish - green, 

 and bordered with red. 

 Summer months. Moul- 

 mein. 



NUTS, WALNUTS, and CHESTNUTS. 



By D. T. Fish. 



T 



THE HAZEL-NUT AND FILBERT. 

 |HE Hazel-nut was known and eaten in the 

 earliest times, and was doubtless used to some 

 extent as food when Hips, Haws, Sloes, and Crabs 

 •were not despised for that purpose. But though 

 a native plant, hardy and fruitful, and cultivated 

 in gardens and orchards, as well as grown in woods 

 and coppices for a thousand or more years, it 

 seems strange that probably more than half the Nuts 

 consumed in England are imported from Spain and 

 other countries. Neither can it be said that the 

 foreign Nuts are the best. No doubt the bulk of 

 them are far superior to the average Hazel-nuts of 

 our copses, which enjoy little light and no culture. 

 But few foreign can equal, none excel in quality 

 the best Kentish and other Nuts, such as Cobs, Bond, 

 and Cosf ord Nuts, and Filberts, grown in the gardens 

 and orchards of England. 



It may be well at the threshold of our subject to 

 unravel the mystery that many lovers of Nuts 

 have never been able to solve — the difference be- 

 tween Nuts and Filberts. Well, the difference lies 

 in the length of their beards, that is, their husks. 

 When the Nuts exceed the husks in length, they are 

 Nuts ; when the husks are longest, the Nuts are 

 draperied into Filberts; where Nuts and husks 

 are equal, the products are either Nuts or Filberts. 



It is therefore a popular error to assume, as is often 

 done, that Filberts are superior to Nuts. In length, 

 or beauty of appendages, they may be, but not in 

 quality, and no sooner do the Filberts cast off their 

 husks than they return to the level of simple un- 

 derrated Nuts. 



Propagation.— Nuts of all kinds are rapidly 

 multiplied by seeds, suckers, and layers. Particular 

 varieties may also be perpetuated by grafting and 

 budding ; but as the former means of increase are 

 so easy, and the latter more difficult, they are sel- 

 dom resorted to. Grafting by any of the ordinary 

 methods may be successfully performed in February 

 or March, and budding in June or July. 



Occasionally two other species, the Constantinople 

 Nut, Corylus Columa, and the American Nut, C. 

 Americana, are used for stocks. The latter espe- 

 cially grows vigorously, and standards at once 

 ornamental and useful may be produced by budding 

 the Purple or Cut-leaved Filbert on these stocks, or 

 on strong stems of the common Nut, from a yard to 

 five feet in height. 



Not a few older varieties, such as the Cosford and 

 others, come pretty true from seeds, and the majority 

 of seedlings from good strains produce good varieties. 

 The Nuts may be sown so soon as gathered, or stored 

 in sand till February or March, then sown thinly in 

 drills from two to three inches in depth. Many will 

 come up the first year, and the remainder the 

 second. Were the Nuts cracked, and the kernels 

 only sown, they would vegetate sooner, but more of 

 them would be consumed by vermin. Leave them 

 two years in the seed-bed or row, then line them out 

 in drills two feet or a yard apart, and from six to 

 fifteen inches in the rows, and finally plant into 

 garden, orchard, or coppice as they reach, sufficient 

 size. 



Suckers may be said to be the natural mode of 

 propagating Nuts and Filberts. Left alone all 

 Nut plants spread out into a stool. The mode 

 of growth is not unlike the Easpberry, with this 

 great difference, the old canes do not die off. 

 The plants left to themselves soon spread out 

 from one to a dozen or more stems. Each of the 

 latter as it springs forth from the root-stock is, 

 so soon as formed, an independent plant. It has 

 only to be carefully separated, and planted in its 

 fruiting quarters, and it becomes a Nut-bearing and 

 a sucker-making bush. Under good culture this 

 stooling system is repressed in favour of single 

 stems ; but under any system there is generally 

 a sufficiency of suckers to be found for propaga- 

 tion. 



Purple, and other choice varieties, are often 

 propagated by layering. 



