NUT-GIiOWING IN ENGLAND. 
385 
outwards and upwards to a height of about G feet, so as to form 
a bowl-hke shape, and so that the upper portions can be easily 
reached by a man standing on the ground, both for the purpose 
of pruning and of gathering the fruit. Excessive hixuriance of 
the laterals (often arising from the richness of the soil in which 
they are planted) may be prevented by root-pruning, or by 
checking them early in the season and again later on by cutting 
back to a female blossom bud, or else spurring nearly down to 
the main branch in the following spring. Many growers in 
July or August break (without quite severing) the strong 
yearling shoots. This is found to be better than pruning with 
a knife, because it allows the sap to continue to flow slowly 
down the broken piece, thus preventing a second growth ; it 
also helps to ripen the wood and swell the buds below the 
fracture. In winter the broken ends are cut off with a sharp 
knife. 
Some growers adopt an altogether diflerent method and grow 
Filberts as bushes, merely cutting out the centre growths as you 
would with Gooseberries and Currants, and shortening the 
strong yearly growths. In all cases the ground should be kept 
clear of weeds, and all suckers from the roots hoed off or severed 
with a sharp knife. 
Froductiveness. 
Williamson, in a productive year (1819), obtained from fifty- 
seven trees, mostly not above six years old, and growing on 8G0 
square yards of ground, 2 cwt. of nuts. The late Mr. Webb, of 
Calcot, in a year when Cob-Filberts were by no means abundant, 
gathered from half an acre of ground 1,300 lb. and upon 
another, three-quarters of an acre, 1,700 lb. ; these he actually 
sold at £1 per 100 lb., being at the rate of £170 an acre. A 
gentleman in Kent tells me that on a plantation of 8^ acres, 
now in about its forty-fifth year's growth, his maximum quantity 
has been 2 tons an acre and his minimum 2| cwt. an acre ; 
the average for the last five years being 1,621 lb. an acre, w^hich 
includes one very small and one very large crop. The trees are 
planted 12 feet x 12 feet, or 300 trees to an acre, and at 24 feet 
apart are planted Apples and Damsons alternately. But this 
gentleman, who is considered one of the best growers in Kent, 
does not advise planting Damsons at all in a nut plantation : 
