from two hazel limbs.  In the smaller one the blight has been two years under way, and in the larger one three years.  These patches of blight were allowed to grow experimentally.  Meanwhile, I trimmed out all other blight areas of the bark with my jack-knife.  This is very readily done.  If one will look over his hazel bushes once a year and simply whip out the few slices of bark carrying the blight, it is done so easily and quickly that we now need to have no fear whatsoever for the future of hazel culture in this country.

If the members of the Association will examine these Cryptosporella specimens which are passed about, and if they will dispose of the blight according to directions, I feel that the hazel question involving a matter perhaps of millions of dollars worth of investment has been settled.

Among the foreign hazels which will thrive in this country the Byzantine hazel, Corylus colurna is by all means the most beautiful.  It makes a tree as large as the ordinary oaks, and in Hungary I have seen a trunk three feet in diameter at a short distance above the ground.  I have been told that a single tree of this species will sometimes bear about twenty bushels of nuts at a single crop.  This presumably refers to the nuts in their large involucral mass,—­say four or five bushels of husked nuts.  The wood of these species is hard, takes a high polish and is valuable.  The tree itself is strikingly beautiful as the members will observe this afternoon when examining the Byzantine hazels which Superintendent Laney will show us in one of the Rochester parks.

This species of hazel in some of the localities about the Black Sea is said to form almost the entire source of income over large districts.  The nuts are not large, as a rule averaging about like those of our common American hazel in size, quality and thinness of shell.  Grafted or budded stocks may be made to bear large thin-shelled nuts.  I am using this hazel at present for grafting stock for choice foreign species and varieties of other kinds, and for the American hazel, although it may be that the American hazel will not respond well to so large and vigorous a stock in the long run.  Nuts and nursery stock may be obtained through French nursery firms.

The reason why the Byzantine hazel has not been planted widely in America as yet, is because we have not advanced that far in civilization,—­people have not happened to think about it.  We must leave something for the people who are to come five thousand years after us, and not think of all good things at once.

The Byzantine hazel appears to be quite free from the blight and this, perhaps, is due to its thick corky bark, which is in itself an attractive feature.  In some individuals the corky bark stands out in ridges almost like that of the corky elm.  The beauty of the European and Asiatic hazels, in general, makes them extremely desirable for ornamental purposes in parks and in dooryards.