MULBEEEIES, MEDLAES, A^B KTJTS. 169 



each; they are four feet high, and are recommended 

 as emitting no suckers, and forming handsome and 

 prohfic garden trees. 



Any pretty good ordinary soil will do for nuts, 

 provided it does not hold stagnant moisture, but a free 

 upland, light loam suits them best, and a plentiful 

 mixture of decayed leaf-mould is good for them. 



They are more frequently increased by layers than 

 by any other mode. Shoots of the previous year's 

 growth may be laid down in autumn or in spring, 

 before the buds open, and they will root readily. By 

 the end of the year the young plants may be separated 

 from the parent tree, and planted out a foot apart, in 

 rows three feet apart. In planting them, prune them 

 to only one shoot each, the best, and cut that back to 

 a foot or eighteen inches, according to its strength. As 

 they grow% keep them to a single stem of a foot and a 

 half or two feet high, before the head forms, which 

 makes it easy to keep the root free from suckers. As 

 the head forms, it is quite worth while to train it to a 

 good shape, keeping it thin and open, and cutting aw^ay 

 irregular, superfluous, and rampant shoots. 



Young trees may be made from cuttings, which 

 should be taken about a foot and a half long, and all 

 the buds, except a few nearest the top, should be picked 

 out, to prevent the after-growth of suckers. 



Nuts are often also grafted, using the common Hazel 

 and Spanish Hazel as stocks. The time for it is, as 

 with apples and pears, when the buds begin to swell. 



Eaising from seed is little resorted to, except for 

 rearing common Hazels ; but hybrydizing might be 

 practised without difficulty in trees which, like the nut, 

 bear the male and female flowers apart, so that crossing 

 might be managed with ease. 



For the winter pruning of nuts, thin out all the ci^oss 

 shoots and superfluous spray, and cut back rampant 

 shoots to half their length, to induce them to throw out 

 fruitful shoots for future produce. Nuts produce on 

 shoots of the preceding year, which have been well 

 exposed to the light to ripen them. The beginning 



