NUTS, WALNUTS, AND CHESTNUTS. 



311 



Planting. — The "best soil is what is called a hazel 

 loam. It should he from two to three feet deep, and 

 rest on a dry "bottom, such as rock, gravel, or sand. 

 The Hazel-nut will grow on almost any soil, hut 

 annual crops of good quality are quite a different 

 matter. To insure these a warm sunny site on the 

 best soil, and skilful culture, are essential. The 

 end of October, or early in November, is the 

 best time to plant Nuts. The distance apart may 

 vary from five to fifteen feet between the rows, 

 and about half these distances from plant to plant, 

 according to the quality of the variety, the nature of 

 the soil and climate, and the mode of sub- or super- 

 cropping adopted. In Kent, the great English 

 Nut county, Hops, and sometimes Apples, are 

 employed as a super-crop between Filberts planted 

 in rows twenty feet apart. More frequently Nuts 

 are sub-cropped with Gooseberries, Currants, Kasp- 

 berries, and vegetables. There are other advan- 

 tages besides cultural in the admixture of Nuts with 

 other crops. The Nut blooms so early — the male 

 blooms opening in winter, and the female ones so 

 soon in the spring — that the crop is not seldom too 

 severely thinned for profit, or wholly destroyed. In 

 such cases it is a great source of satisfaction and 

 profit to have some other produce to fall back upon. 

 Where the entire ground is devoted to Nuts or 

 Filberts, they are generally planted in rows nine or 

 ten feet asunder, with five, seven, to nine feet 

 between the stools. These distances afford room for 

 the full development of the plants, and ultimately 

 yield a maximum amount of produce from a 

 minimum area of ground. 



Pruning and Training.— The main, point in 

 training is to secure an upright stem from a foot to 

 three feet in height. If the plants are too weakly 

 when planted to form such a stem, they should be 

 cut down to the ground-line, and one strong shoot 

 encouraged. This at the winter pruning should be cut 

 back to eighteen inches- or a yard from the ground, 

 and from this centre from five to seven shoots of 

 almost equal strength should be trained out vase- 

 fashion, in a similar manner to that recommended 

 for Gooseberries. Should only two or three breaks 

 be obtained from the centre stem, these should be 

 shortened back next season within a few inches of 

 their base to force the requisite number of shoots 

 to form the future framework of the trees. In this 

 way a sufficiency of forming and fruiting wood 

 is furnished right back to the base of the bushes. 

 Trained thus, each Filbert will have a clear stem, 

 and enable the cultivator to get rid of the plague 

 of suckers, as well as increase the fertility of the 

 bushes. On each stem will be mounted a squat bush, 

 pruned and trained very much after the manner of 



a Gooseberry, only, instead of hard-pruning the 

 young wood back to the base, several inches should, 

 as a rule, be left for Nut- bearing. The Nuts are 

 chiefly borne on the lateral shoots, so that it is 

 needful to stop the leading shoots in order to pro- 

 duce these in plenty. 



The character of the Nut-blossom determines, to 

 a great extent, the best time to prune it. The 

 Hazel-nut has not only two very distinct sexes 

 of flowers on the same plant, but these open at 

 different times, and frequently most of the long 

 male catkins have faded before the small, reddish, 

 inconspicuous female blossoms expand. By pruning 

 in January, as is often recommended, the chances 

 are that there will not be sufficient pollen left to set 

 the female blossoms. Hence the wisdom of not 

 pruning till near the end of March. The pollen will 

 then have done its work, and those branches that 

 bear chiefly male catkins may be cut off. The 

 female blossoms will also have become more con- 

 spicuous, and any barren branches may be cut out or 

 shortened back to the Nuts, while the barren laterals 

 may be pruned hard back to within half an inch of 

 the leading branches. 



Occasionally Filberts become so fertile that very 

 few male catkins are produced. In these cases it is 

 very important to collect the catkins from Wood- 

 nuts, or from other bushes, and suspend them over 

 and among the trees studded with female blossoms, 

 in order to make sure of a crop. Some of the most 

 successful Nut-growers gather part of the male 

 catkins when in full flower, and save them till the 

 female blooms get farther advanced, and then 

 suspend them over, or distribute the pollen among 

 them. 



The pruning of Filberts is generally continued for 

 the purpose of limiting the area and height of the 

 trees, as well as the moulding of them into form, 

 and the assisting of their fertility. In practice it is 

 found that a height and breadth of from four to six 

 feet are not only most convenient, but the most 

 profitable, and it is astonishing what enormous 

 quantities of Nuts may be gathered for many years 

 from trees hardly exceeding these sizes. 



Of course there are other modes of growing Nuts, 

 in which the single stem system, and most of this 

 pruning and training, are set aside. The Nuts are 

 allowed to spread into stools with six or more 

 branches rising from the roots, and these are per- 

 mitted to run up and fruit. Large crops may be 

 gathered in this way, and most of the labour 

 involved in the scientific culture of the Filbert be 

 avoided. 



The General Cultivation of the Filbert. 



— This consists in sub- cropping the surface during 



