NUT-GROWING IN ENGLAND. 
NUT-GROWING IN ENGLAND. 
By Mr. J. Omer Ccopek, F.R.H.S. 
[Read October 15, 1895.j 
The nut, the subject of the paper I have been induced to write, 
is one that should be interesting to all gardeners and fruit- 
growers, and to those who have large estates, for the nut will 
often grow and thrive where few other things will. 
The word "hazel" (Anglo-Saxon hcesel) is supposed to be 
derived from the Anglo-Saxon lues, a behest, connected with 
Jidtan, equal to the German word heissen, to give orders ; and 
the hazel-wand was the sceptre of authority with the shepherd 
chieftains of olden times. 
The common Hazel {Gorylus Avcllana of Linn^eus, and 
belonging to his twenty-first class, Monoecia, containing all 
plants having male and female flowers separate on the same 
root) is distributed throughout Europe, North Africa, Central 
and Russian Asia, except the most northern parts. 
In the natural system the tree belongs to Corylacece, which 
includes all plants which have their male flowers arranged in 
aments, commonly called catkins, which are very noticeable 
during the autumn and winter. These cylindrical, drooping, 
yellow male catkins are from 1 to 2^ inches in length. The 
female flowers are bright purple or crimson, small, sessile, 
resembling leaf-buds, and proceed from the apex of the largest 
buds ; and the minute inner bracts, by their enlargement, even- 
tually form the husk of the nut. The ovary is not visible till 
nearly midsummer, and is not fully developed before autumn. 
The nuts have a length of from half to three-quarters of an 
inch, and grow in clusters. Clusters of two or three nuts are the 
result of the equal development of two or all the three carpels of 
the original flower, of which, ordinarily, two become abortive. 
Fusion of two or more nuts is also not uncommon. The bark of 
the older stems is of a bright brown, mottled with grey ; that of 
the young twigs ifi ash-coloured, glandular, and hairy. Shake- 
speare refers to the colour of the hazel-nut in his " Taming of 
the Shrew," act ii. scene 1, where Petruchio says : " Kate, like 
the hazel-twig, is straight and slender ; and as brown in hue as 
hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels." 
