I had cut off a few branches from the Jones hybrids when I received them and grafted these to wild hazels.  This had been suggested by Robert Morris in his book, “Nut Growing,” as an interesting experiment which might prove to be practical.  It did not prove to be so for me for although the grafting itself was successful I found it tiresome to prune, repeatedly, the suckers which constantly spring up during the growing period and which are detrimental to grafts.  Although they lived for five years, these grafts suffered a great deal of winter-injury and they never bore nuts.  The one which lived for the longest time became quite large and overgrew the stock of the wild hazel.  This same plant produced both staminate and pistillate blossoms very abundantly for several seasons but it did not set any nuts in spite of the many wild hazels growing nearby which gave it access to pollen.  It is now known that this hybrid is self-sterile and must have pollinators of the right variety in order to bear.

My next work with members of the genus Corylus was discouraging.  In April 1929, I bought one hundred hazel and filbert plants from Conrad Vollertsen of Rochester, New York, which included specimens of the Rush hazel and of the following varieties of filberts: 

    Italian Red
    Merribrook
    Kentish Cob
    Early Globe
    Zellernuts
    White Lambert
    Althaldensleben
    Medium Long
    Bony Bush
    Large Globe
    Minnas Zeller
    Marveille de Bollwyller

Although many of these filberts bore nuts the first year they were planted, within two years they were all completely winter-killed.

In 1932, I received ten filbert bushes from J. U. Gellatly of West Bank, British Columbia.  These consisted of several varieties of Glover’s best introductions and some Pearson seedlings.  I planted them on the south side of a high stone wall, a favorable location for semi-hardy plants.  They appeared to be thrifty and only slightly winter-killed during the first two years but by 1939, all but two of the bushes had died or were dying.  Although as nut-bearing plants they have been of little value to me, their pollen has been of great service.

I found an unusually fine wild hazel growing in the woods on my farm and in 1934, I began an experiment in hybridizing it.  I crossed the pistillate flowers of the native hazel with pollen from a Gellatly filbert and obtained four hybrid plants, which I have called hazilberts.  In the spring of 1940, three of these hybrids had pistillate flowers but no staminate blooms.  As I was very eager to see what the new crosses would be like, I fertilized the blossoms with a gunshot mixture of pollen from other plants such as the Winkler hazel, the European filbert and the Jones hybrid hazel.  Certain difficulties arose in making these hybrids, mainly due to the curiosity of the squirrels who liked to rip open the sacks covering the blossoms which