As soon as Uncle John had finished, Mary handed him a hazelnut. "Please tell about this one," said she.
"I have often gone hazel nutting when I was a boy," said her uncle. "Hazelnuts grow on bushes in thickets. They are six or eight feet high and very slender. Baskets are sometimes made of them, and I have often used them for arrows.
"Sometimes the nuts grow singly, and sometimes in groups of two or three. A bur covers the nut, which sticks very closely until it is ripe. Then the nuts often fall out.
"After I had gathered the hazelnuts, I used to spread them out on the roof of the wood house to dry."
"Nuts that look just like these are called filberts," said Helen.
"Filberts are cultivated hazelnuts," replied Uncle John; "they are larger than the wild ones."
"I would like to know how this nut grows," said Helen, handing her uncle a black nut shaped like a triangular prism.
"This," said Uncle John, "came from Brazil, and is called a Brazil nut. Do you know where Brazil is?"
"It is in the northeastern part of South America," replied Helen.
"The great Amazon River is in Brazil, and it flows through tropical forests," said Mary.