THE FILBERT. 



565 



primer is to have the branches thickly beset 

 with fruitful spurs, and which are only reduced 

 in length when, after a few years' growth, they 

 become too distant from the branch, when they 

 are cut back to a healthy spur behind." — Eogers, 

 p. 157. 



The following sorts are the most valuable :— 



Cob nut. — Fruit short ovate, and slightly com- 

 pressed ; size large ; husk hispid ; shell thick 

 and hard. Trees upright in growth. Synonyms 

 — Barcelona of some, Prolific, Dwarf prolific, 

 Glasgow prolific, Pearson's prolific, Downton 

 large, Large cob of some, Great cob of others. A 

 profitable and useful sort. 



Cosford. — Fruit oblong ; size large ; husk 

 hispid; shell remarkably thin, and striated 

 longitudinally; of excellent quality, and a great 

 bearer. Synonyms — Thin-shelled, Miss Young's. 

 Originated at Cosford in Suffolk. 



Frizzled. — Fruit oval and compressed ; size 

 medium ; husk hispid ; shell thick. A very 

 great and early bearer, and distinguished from 

 all other filberts or nuts by its much laciniated 

 husk, from which it has obtained the name of 

 Frizzled. Synonyms — Cape nut, Frizzled nut. 

 Originated in a garden at Hoveton, near Norwich. 



Northamptonshire prolific. — Fruit oblong; size 

 medium; husk hispid; shell thick. Esteemed 

 chiefly for its earliness. This, however, should 

 not be confounded with the Northampton filbert, 

 which is of inferior quality, and readily distin- 

 guished from this by the smoothness of its husk. 



Spanish. — Fruit oblong and very large ; 

 husk smooth ; shell thick. A variety well 

 known in the market and largely imported. 

 By no means productive in Britain, but excellent 

 as a stock on which to graft the Cosford, 

 Frizzled, &c. Synonyms — Taker, Large bond nut, 

 Lambert's large, Lambert's, Cob of some, Great 

 cob, Large cob also of some, Sir John Aubrey's. 

 It is different from Barr's Spanish, which has 

 ovate fruit of medium size ; husk hispid and 

 extremely short; shell very thick ; and altogether 

 inferior in quality. 



Bond nut. — Fruit oblong ovate ; size medium; 

 husk hispid ; shell thin ; of excellent quality. 

 Different from the Large bond nut, given as a 

 synonym to the last. 



Large round cob. — Fruit round; size large; 

 husk smooth; shell thick; a good bearer and of 

 excellent quality. 



Downton large square. — Fruit short and ob- 

 tusely four-sided ; size large ; husk smooth ; shell 

 thick ; above average quality, and, with the next, 

 originated with Mr Knight at Downton Castle. 



Downton long. — Fruit oblong ; size medium; 

 husk smooth; shell thick; much the same in 

 quality with the last. 



White filbert. — Fruit ovate; size medium; husk 

 hispid ; shell thick ; a profuse bearer and of 

 excellent quality. Synonym — Wrotham park. 



Red filbert. — Fruit ovate ; size medium ; husk 

 hispid ; shell thick ; resembling the last in 

 every particular, excepting in the pellicle or 

 skin of the kernel, nhich in this variety is red, 

 while in the last it is of a pale colour. In both 

 the husk is long and tubular, contracting so 

 much beyond the point of the fruit as to prevent 

 its falling out, and on this account was consti- 

 VOL. II. 



Fig. 236. 



tuted into a species by Willdenow under the 

 name of Corylus tubulosus. Synonym — Bed hazel. 



This, as well as all the cultivated fruit-bearing 

 sorts, is a variety of Corylus avellana, and not 

 of Corylus tubulosus, as stated in Lawson's 

 Catalogue, and also in Loudon's " Encyclopaedia 

 of Gardening." The " Hortus Britannicus" makes 

 the red filbert, the var. Rubra of Corylus arellana 

 of Linn., a native of Britain, while C. tubulosus 

 of Willd., a native of the south of Europe, was 

 not introduced till 1759, thirty years after the 

 publication of Langley's (( Pomona." 



Diseases and insects. — We are aware of no 

 disease peculiar to this tree. Several insects 

 attack the foliage, but rarely to the extent to 

 produce injury. It is otherwise, however, with 

 Balaninus nucum of Germar, Curculio nucum L., 

 the nut- weevil, fig. 236. The maggot of this 

 insect is that which we so 

 frequently meet with in the 



\ kernel of the nut, and is 

 / the offspring of a beetle 

 f found abundantly, if looked 

 for, upon the hazel and fil- 

 bert trees, from the end of 

 May to the end of August. 

 Having chosen a nut, the 

 female commences cutting 

 a hole through the yet soft 

 and tender shell, which she 

 does with apparent ease 

 with her jaws, which are 

 placed at the point of her 

 long slender rostrum ; this 

 having completed, she turns 

 round and deposits a single 

 egg in each cavity. The nut 

 continues to grow, seeming- 

 ly unaffected by its inmate. 

 In about eight days after the 

 egg has been laid, hatching 

 is completed, and the young maggot finds food 

 already prepared for it in the kernel, upon which 

 it continues to feed until it has nearly consumed 

 it. At this time, as if aware that its supply of 

 food is nearly exhausted, it begins eating a hole 

 in the side of the shell with its jaws, of sufficient 

 size to admit of its liberation, sometimes while 

 the nut is attached to the tree, but oftener, it is 

 believed, after it has fallen to the ground. It 

 then buries itself in the earth in an elliptical 

 cavity, which it forms for itself, and remains 

 there during winter, changing in the following 

 spring, or even later, to a whitish chrysalis. 



The best remedy for their suppression is to 

 examine the crop, and gather and destroy all 

 the fruit that indicates the presence of the 

 maggot, which may be ascertained by the marks 

 on the shell caused by the female having per- 

 forated it, as described above ; and also by 

 collecting the soil around the bushes to the 

 depth of 2 inches, and burning or burying it 

 in pits 2 feet deep, using the soil taken from the 

 pits to replace that taken away. 



The European names are — Noisetier, French — 

 Haselstraude, German — Hazelaar, Dutch — Noc- 

 ciuolo, Italian — Avellano, Spanish — Avelleira, 

 Portuguese — Frandik, Turkish — Oreschnik, 

 Russian. 



4 c 



THE NUT-WEEVIL. 



