Fruit-growing in Kent, 
113 
appears very early, may not be rubbed off. Pruning or cutting 
filbert-trees is a most elaborate process. Each branch is exa- 
mined by the tree-cutter, who leaves the finest young wood that 
he sees, or oughl to see, at a glance if he knows his business, 
to be bloom-bearing, and cuts away all wood of coarser, older 
•rrowtli, comparatively unfruitful. The "bloom," or cluster of 
pistilline flowers, is remarkably pretty, like a tiny scarlet star 
upon the extremities of the shoots. It is fertilised by the 
"catkins," as the stamineous flowers are called, growing on 
the same branches, some of which are left by the judicious 
cutter. After the pruning the trees look mere skeletons, as 
may be seen by the appended illustration, which also shows the 
catkins in due order. A stranger who had seen filbert-trees 
Fig. 1. — A Pruned Filbcrt-tree. 
thus naked and forlorn in the winter, would be surprised to see 
them in September with a wonderful wealth of leaves, branches, 
and nuts upon them. A typical tree has a stem of about 2 feet 
in height, from which the branches are trained to spread out 
laterally, and to form a centre of a saucer-like shape, with a 
diameter of 7 or 8 feet, and a height of about 6 feet. After 
pruning, nothing is done until July, when most growers have 
the long suckers taken from the middle of the trees, and the 
leading shoots are broken off to relieve them from the burden of 
supporting unproductive wood. Mr. Webb states that he saw 
some filbert-trees near Maidstone which had grown 40 lbs. of 
nuts on each tree.* A crop of a ton, or even more, is occa- 
sionally grown ; but the average yield may be set at about 
8 cwts. per acre. Filberts are frequently sold on the trees, as 
the growers have hops to attend to, and do not want the trouble 
* Op. cit., p. 42. 
VOL. XIII.— S. S. 
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