316 On the Fertilization of the Female Blossoms of Filberts. 



sent me six pounds* of very fine Filberts, as the produce of 

 his four old stunted trees ; he has no others. 



If I rightly understand Mr. Williamson's description (in 

 the Paper before referred to) of the Kentish method of prun- 

 ing Filbert-trees, the Pruners in their mode of operation ne- 

 cessarily cut away a great proportion of the male blossoms, 

 (for these, I beg leave to state, are for the most part pro- 

 duced towards the extremities of the strongest shoots,) in 

 order to increase the number of female ones. Mr. William- 

 son indeed says, that " in pruning care must be taken to 

 have a due supply of males to fructify the female blossoms, 

 or our previous trouble will be entirely useless." But he does 

 not say that the Kentish operators pay any attention to this 

 important point, and I am rather inclined to suppose that the 

 original inventors of their method might have designedly cut 

 away the catkins, on the principle formerly acted upon by 

 many gardeners, who carefully picked off the male blossoms 

 of their Cucumbers, under the notion of being false blossoms. 

 Whilst, therefore, I reflect on the great uncertainty of there 

 remaining a due supply of males to fructify the females, under 

 the unmerciful abscission ,f described to be annually practised 



* Filberts were last season so scarce in the neighbourhood of Bath as to sell 

 for from .a shilling to fourteen-pence a pound in the fruit shops of that city. 



f Mr. Williamson says, (in the communication above referred to, Horticul- 

 tural Transactions, Vol. iv. page 149,) " The leading shoot is every year to be 

 shortened two thirds or more, and the whole height of the branches must not be 

 suffered to exceed six feet. Every shoot that is left to produce fruit should also 

 be tipped." Mr. Phillips in his Pomarium, page 1 72, informs us that « in Kent, 

 the Filbert trees are not suffered to grow above five or six feet high, and are kept 

 with a short stem like a Gooseberry bush, and very thin of wood, somewhat in the 

 shape of a punch bowl. 1 '' 



