One of the most attractive is the purple variety of Corylus avellana.  In many parts of Europe this is held to be desirable for its nuts, but in Connecticut it is prone to flower so early in the season that the elongated male catkins are caught by frost.  I have seen elongated catkins in a warm week at the end of February.  A very desirable variety of Corylus avellana is one of which I now show specimens.  The section of the branch which I pass about carried four large nuts yesterday but I find that one of them has disappeared, and it is probable that last night in the sleeping car a squirrel got in when the porter was looking the other way.

The specimen represents a seedling individual among a lot presented to me by Prince Colloredo Mannsfeld of Bohemia nine years ago.  This particular shrub is rather homely, with small unattractive leaves and big bony branches, but it bears heavily of large thin shelled hazels of the highest quality, and the sort which are now bringing fifty cents per pound in the New York market as green hazels.  It blossoms very late in the spring.  I have not as yet given a name to this individual bush, but as Professor J. Russell Smith caught my description of it and speaks of it as “the bony-bush” we will allow his nomenclature to stand if members of the Association wish to call for any of the wood for grafting or budding purposes. Corylus avellana in its many varieties is the chief European hazel which gives us the cobnuts and filberts of the market, and it is the one which will probably be most widely introduced into this country.  The name “filbert” is a corruption of “full beard” and is properly applied only to those nuts in which the husk extends beyond the nut.  The shrubs of this species commonly reach a height of about fifteen to eighteen feet, with a spread of the same dimensions.  Trimming by the horticulturist allows of the development of a larger bearing surface, very much as it does with peach or apple trees.

In some parts of Europe this species serves for hedge fences, indicating the practical ideas belonging to an older civilization.  In this country we make hedge fences of worthless osage orange, privet, or honey locust which steal nourishment from the soil, add little to the beauty of the landscape, and give us no return whatsoever.  Such a typical American way of doing things will be changed when we stop to think.  Stopping to think is rather a painful process and gives us many jolts, but it has its rewards.  When we replace our worthless hedge plants with hazels which yield heavy annual crops of valuable nuts we shall have made one step forward.

A fine hazel is the Corylus pontica.  The shrub in itself has beauty, and it bears nuts sometimes as large as those of the average shagbark hickory.  The kernel is of good quality, but the shell is so thick that these nuts are chiefly attractive to squirrels and to men who are out of work.  I do not know the origin of the nut which is known in the market as the Barcelona hazel, but I imagine the plants bearing this nut are derived from the Corylus pontica. (Specimens of branches and nuts of various species and varieties of hazels are now passed about in the audience.) The nuts are beginning to ripen in this first week in September.