COB-NUTS AND FILBERTS. 



225 



Filbert is correctly used for those long nuts which are quite covered 

 by a husk, and has been derived, according to some writers, as in 

 the German case, from " full -beard." It is probably, however, to St. 

 Philibert that we owe the name, as his day falls on August 22, which 

 would correspond with the ripening date, as also with the old spelling 

 of the name. 



It is difficult to get an accurate idea of the size of the nuts of the 

 classical writers ; and though it cannot be positively asserted, it seems 

 likely that, as in many other fruits, Italy is the country where its 

 development was started. We have, however, good evidence that 

 in the fifteenth century they were of a size little inferior to that of 

 the present day. 



In a picture by Crivelli, one of the Italian primitives, now at 

 Berlin, there is a garland of fruits, including a bunch of nuts which 

 might almost be our Kent Cob of to-day. As the other fruits shown 

 serve as a basis of comparison it is evident that the succeeding four 

 hundred years have not added much in size. 



From the earlier Herbalists we can gain some idea of the varieties 

 cultivated in the seventeenth century. Caspar Bauhin, in his ' ' Pinax '' 

 (1671), describes six varieties, including the White and Red Filberts, 

 a large, round-fruited variety, and the Avellana major Lugdunensis or 

 Lyons nut, evidently a prototype of the large Cobs of the present day. 



These six varieties formed for many years the only ones described 

 by horticultural writers, and it is not till comparatively recent times 

 that even seedlings were raised. 



In Germany the Pastor Henne, in the middle of last century, raised 

 the ' Gunslebener Filbert,' which later proved of importance as the 

 parent of the giant variety, ' Hallesche Giant ' (fig. 30) — a variety 

 which, however, is too poor a cropper in this country to be of any 

 value. Burchardt, an able German pomologist of about the same 

 period, did much work in collecting the best varieties of nuts and pub- 

 lished one of the earliest treatises on this fruit entitled " Contributions 

 to the History of the Hazel Nut." 



In France little or nothing was done in the way of raising new 

 varieties, and in England the few sorts named by Bauhin seem to 

 have been the only ones available for a long period. 



In Brookshaw's " Pomona Britannica," published in 1812, we find 

 eight varieties figured, which he expressly states are all that he has 

 ever met with. These include the Filberts White and Red, the 

 Barcelona, a large nut resembling our present Kent Cob and unlike 

 the Barcelona of the shops of to-day, the English Cob, resembling 

 ' Merveille de Bolwyller,' and a few of unknown origin. 



From this time, however, English gardeners seem to have taken 

 a renewed interest in Nuts ; and the raising of the ' Cosf ord ' (fig. 27) t 

 in 1 816, may have stimulated others to raise seedlings. 



In the Catalogue of Fruits grown at Chiswick, and published in 

 1831, there are thirty-one varieties : thirteen of which by their names 

 are probably of British origin. 



