l
nut that the Brazil nut would rank D 3 beside it.

I still believe in seed planting, even for speed of eventual growth.
Last October I climbed up a black walnut tree I planted in mid-World War
I. From the top of it I looked away down to the tops of electric power
poles!

Filberts Grow in Vermont

JOSEPH N. COLLINS, R.F.D. No. 3, Putney, Vermont

Fifteen years ago I set out a few hundred nut trees and bushes. The
Chinese chestnuts are not doing very well, as they needed more attention
than I could give them. Honeylocusts, in this climate, require more
time. At present I can report only on seedling filberts. The seeds for
these plants were collected from the four corners of the world. Some of
the seedlings perished, lots of them were discarded as unworthy. At
present I am setting out two acres of the ones that stood up well under
the test.

The filbert (_Corylus avellana_) is a bush 15 to 20 feet tall and the
bushes should be planted 20 to 25 feet apart. It doesn't mind partial
shade, requires no spraying and very little pruning. Like the red
raspberry, it is easily propagated by suckers. Most of my bushes started
producing when they were four years old and now in their fourteenth
year, drop about 15 pounds of large fine nuts each September. They stand
up well under the rigorous Vermont climate, at an elevation of 1,000
feet. Knowing as much about their growing habits as I do, I believe that
a steady winter with plenty of snow on the ground and a late spring that
isn't fickle, is well suited for filbert growing in the Northeast. The
need for wind protection and good air and water drainage cannot be
over-emphasized.

There are a few reasons why I should advise against growing filberts in
tree fashion--with a single trunk, as they are mostly grown on the West
Coast. The catkins of the filbert develop during the summer, lie dormant
through the winter, and shed their pollen very early in the spring.
Should the temperature fall as low as -35 deg.F, the catkins winterkill. To
overcome this shortcoming, I bend down and peg to the ground, in the
late fall, a few slim shoots with dormant catkins, so that the snow, or
some other mulching material supplied when there is insufficient snow,
will cover and protect the catkins from winterkilling.

By the end of March, after a stretch of fair weather, two tiny red
tongues appear at the tips of some of the leaf buds. These are the
pollen catching parts of the pistillate