Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

growing, free-fruiting variety. it is quite popular in California, where it has been in cultivation for twenty years or more under the name of Red Aveline. Specimens I have received from there were not as large as those raised in England, but this can be accounted for by the difference in climate. This variety is cultivated in Europe under various local names, as, for instance, Great Cob, Kentish Cob, Filbert Cob, and Large Bond Cob.

GRANDIS, OR ROUND COBNUT.-Nut large, short, slightly compressed, very thick and hard; husk shorter than the fruit, much frizzled and hairy. This is supposed to be the true Barcelona nut of commerce, and is one of the finest grown. This is the large round hazel or filbert so largely imported for the trade in this country. It has many synonyms, and among them we may record Downton, Dwarf Prolific, Great Cob and Round Cob.

PURPLE-LEAVED FILBERT.-Usually cultivated as an ornamental shrub in this country, but under proper treatment it is one of the most valuable for its fruit. Leaves very large, and of a deep purple color. Nuts and husk of the same color, which they retain until cut by frosts. Nuts large, an inch in length; husks much longer than the nut, and slightly hairy. The catkins are tender and become winterkilled in our Northern States, but if the pistillate flowers are fertilized by pollen from some more hardy plant, this purple-leaved filbert is exceedingly prolific. I have gathered eighty nuts from a small bush in my garden, the flowers of which had been fertilized from another variety in early spring.

RED FILBERT. Red Hazel, Avelinier Rouge.-Nut medium ovate, not long as in the tubulosa, or Lambert's filbert; shell thick; husk long and hispid. A very productive variety of good quality.

SPANISH FILBERT.-Nut very large, oblong; shell thick; husk smooth, longer than the nut. A very large variety, sometimes confounded with the Round cobnut and its synonyms.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH FILBERTS.

Believing that our failures are often of far more value, in the line of education, than our successes, I shall not hesitate to place my own on record as guideposts to those who may be seeking the most direct road to success in nut culture. Having had a rather extended and expensive experience in the cultivation of filberts, I purpose giving a brief account of it here, with the hope that it may save some other enthusiast from losing time and money.

My attention was first specially drawn to these nuts in 1858,—while a resident of the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., -by a neighbor who had a moderately large garden, on three sides of which he had planted a row of English filberts. These trees, at the time, had attained a hight of about fifteen feet, with broad, open heads, and they rarely failed to produce a heavy crop of nuts, which sold readily at very remunerative prices, for as they were always gathered in the husks and sold by the pound, the amount obtained from these few trees seemed to be enormous, considering the small space they occupied in this garden. The owner of these filbert trees, being an Englishman by birth, never tired of showing his English filberts to visitors, and of descanting upon their value, as well as upon the stupid indifference of the Yankees in neglecting the cultivation of these valuable nuts. I imbibed enough of my neighbor's enthusiasm to secure a good stock of his plants, a few years later, for cultivation in my grounds here. The third year after planting, quite a number of the bushes produced a fair crop of nuts, but I noticed that an occasional shoot was affected

with blight, and these were immediately cut out and burned. The next season more of the branches were affected, and from these the blight extended downward on the main stems, and when these were cut away the sprouts from below made a very vigorous and apparently healthy growth, some reaching a hight of six feet the first season, but a year or two later these were also attacked and destroyed by blight.

Finding that the filberts in my grounds were doomed, I visited my old neighbor in Brooklyn, hoping to learn something of the origin or cause of the disease; but the blight had invaded his garden, and not a tree remained. On my return from this visit I had every filbert and hazel plant on my place dug up and burned, thinking by such means to stamp out the disease. After waiting ten years, I thought it time to try filberts again, and to be certain of securing pure and healthy plants, I concluded to raise them from the nuts, and sent an order for a few pounds of the largest and best variety to be found in the celebrated filbert orchards of Kent, Eng. In due time the nuts arrived, and they were very large, and all of one variety, as ordered. They were mixed with sand and buried in the garden until the following spring, then sown thinly in shallow drills and covered with about two inches of rich soil.

At the close of the first season the plants were from one to two feet high and quite stocky, with a mass of small fibrous roots. The next spring they were transplanted into nursery rows, and set about one foot apart. The third spring I laid out about one acre for a specimen filbert orchard, and after the ground had been thoroughly prepared, the plants were set ten feet apart in the row, and twelve between the rows. No crop was planted among the trees, but the ground was kept clean and free from weeds during the summer, with cultivator and harrow. All suckers springing from the base of the

[graphic]

FIG. 40. ENGLISH FILBERT ORCHARD, FIVE YEARS FROM SEED.

stems were removed as soon as they appeared, and under such treatment the plants made a vigorous growth. Two years later quite a number of the trees came into bearing, these showing that I was likely to have nearly as many varieties in my orchard as there were trees. Some of the varieties might be better than the parent, but the greater part were certain to be inferior in size. The fourth year after planting in the orchard the trees gave me a heavy crop of nuts, and they made a fine appear

[graphic][graphic][graphic][graphic][graphic]

FIG. 41. VARIETIES OF FILBERTS AND HAZEL SEEDLINGS.

ance as one looked down between the long rows, as shown in Fig. 40. But this season my old enemy, the filbert blight, appeared again, and branches and main stems began to blacken and the leaves to wither. But I had bushels of nuts and in great variety, and by sending specimen baskets of the long-husk varieties to dealers in New York, learned that there was an almost unlimited demand for such nuts, at prices ranging from

« AnteriorContinuar »