where the young trees are scattered and exposed to the full sweep of the winds, the nuts are sound and free from insect enemies. The only remedy is to collect and destroy the weevils, which is not a serious matter where only the larger varieties are cultivated.

Diseases of the Chestnut.-I have never noticed any special disease among chestnuts, neither do I find any mentioned in European works on forestry. The nearest approach to any such malady being recorded as having appeared in this country, is found in a paragraph in Hough's "Report on Forestry," 1877, p. 470, where the author copies from Prof. W. C. Kerr, State Geologist, North Carolina, as follows: "The chestnut was formerly abundant in the Piedmont region, down to the country between the Catawba and Yadkin rivers, but within the last thirty years they have mostly perished. They are now found east of the Blue Ridge only, on higher ridges and spurs of the mountains. They have suffered injury here, and are dying out both here and beyond the Blue Ridge. They are much less fruitful than they were a generation ago, and the crop is much more uncertain.”

While there is nothing said about any chestnut disease in the paragraph quoted, we only infer that the author intended to convey the idea that the trees were suffering from some endemic malady, although it may have been due to long drouths, insect depredators, or other causes. A few years later Mr. Hough, in his "Elements of Forestry," refers to the subject again, and admits that "the cause of the malady is unknown." But as chestnuts continue to come to our markets in vast quantities from the Piedmont regions, there must be a goodly number of healthy trees remaining.

Uses. The economic value of the chestnut, as food for mankind and the lower animals, has been, and is still, so well known, that no extended dissertation or

compilation of historic instances of its usefulness are required here. For almost two thousand years it has been an important article of food throughout southern Europe, and in some of the mountainous districts it is almost the "staff of life" among the poorer people, who not only use these nuts in their raw state, but roasted, boiled, stewed, and even dried and ground into flour, from which a coarse but nutritious kind of cake or bread is made. These nuts are also used in the same way by the poorer classes of China and Japan, and probably in other oriental countries. In France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, the chestnut crop is of immense importance, not only for domestic use, but commercially, because all surplus is wanted by other nations, who are ever ready to take a share, and pay a good round price for the same.

In this country chestnuts are mainly used as a luxury or a kind of pocket lunch for the children, as they are rarely brought to the table, and it is very doubtful if the American housewife, or our cooks,-unless foreign born and bred,-know anything about preparing these delicious nuts for comestible purposes. Cereals, meats, fruits and vegetables have always been so abundant and cheap in this country, that the poorest of the poor could indulge in them without stint or limit; but all this will change sooner or later, and when our population has doubled or trebled, the edible nuts must become of much more importance than now, and a roast turkey stuffed with chestnuts may figure as the ideal of gastronomic art.

As our native chestnuts are now annually consumed by the thousands of bushels, and the imported varieties by millions of pounds, and all as a mere luxury,-not a necessity nor an article which we could not dispense with without any serious inconvenience, we may well consider what the future demand must be, and make haste to meet it with an abundant supply.

CHAPTER VI.

FILBERT OR HAZELNUT.

Corylus, Tournefort. Name from korys, a hood, helmet or bonnet, in reference to the form of the calyx or husk enclosing the nut. Order, Corylaceæ. Deciduous trees or low shrubs. Male flowers appearing in

the autumn in pendulous cylindrical catkins two inches or more in length, with a two-cleft calyx partly united with the bracts or scales. These catkins remain on the plants all winter, becoming fully developed, and shedding their pollen early the following spring. Female flowers minute, entirely hidden within the buds during the winter, but early in spring their bright red, threadlike stigmas push out from the tips of the lateral or terminal buds. Ovary two-celled, with one ovule in each. Nut globular, ovoid or oblong, often in clusters, but each enclosed in a leafy, two- or three-valved husk, fringed or deeply notched at the upper end. Leaves broadly heart-shaped, serrate, with sturdy, short leafstalks. The filbert and hazel always bloom before the leaves appear in spring, and the male catkins usually open and begin to scatter their pollen in this latitude during warm days in March, the females soon following, their bright-red stigmas pushing out from the ends of the buds, but as soon as fertilization has been consummated they shrivel and disappear. The trees may then remain leafless for weeks following, and yet produce a heavy crop of fruit.

The common English name, filbert, is from "fullbeard." All the varieties with husks extending beyond the nut, and with fringed edges, are filberts (Fig. 37);

while those with husks shorter than the nuts (Fig. 38) are hazels, from the old Anglo-Saxon word, hæsel, a hood or bonnet. The parentage, size, form or quality of the nut, is not to be considered in this classification, for when the nuts are ripe and fallen from the husks,

there is nothing left to distinguish the hazelnuts from filberts, unless a person is sufficiently familiar with a variety to know to which group it belongs. In France these nuts are known under the general name of Noysette; while in Germany it is Haselnuss; in Holland Hazel

noot; and in Italy Avellana, from Avellana, a city of Naples, near which there is a valley where these nuts have been extensively cultivated for many centuries.

History of the Filbert.-It is claimed that the filbert was first known to the Romans as Nux Pontica, because introduced from Pontus; but it must have become naturalized throughout southern Europe in very early times. But the Italian name of Avellana appears to have been applied to the wild hazel of Britain, long before Linnæus adopted it as the specific name of the

FIG. 38. LARGE SEEDLING HAZELNUT.

indigenous species. John Evelyn, one of the most careful and learned of English arboriculturists of his time, in referring to these nuts, in his "Sylva," 1664, says: "I do not confound the filbert Pontic, distinguished by its beard, with our foresters or bald hazelnuts, which, doubtless, we had from abroad, bearing the names of Avelan or Avelin, as I find in some ancient records and deeds in my custody, where my ancestors' names were written Avelan, alias Evelin."