A NURSERY OF IMPROVED FILBERTS
Conrad Vollertsen, Rochester, N. Y.
Again I have prepared a paper on the growing of Improved European hazelnuts, but through practical experience perhaps a little more positive in my statements.
It is well known, a well established fact, that our common native American hazelnuts both Corylus rostrata the beaked hazel, and Corylus Americana the American hazel in their present state of appearance are for various reasons not very well adapted nor desirable for cultivation, particularly Corylus rostrata, a very slow growing variety with unusual small and hard shelled nuts, so small and hard that even the rodents of field and forest refuse to gather and eat them. The only value I can see in this variety is that it may prove to be a good pollenizer. Corylus Americana is a better grower with nuts a little longer than the preceding variety, but a short life plant and therefore not even fit to use for stock to graft on and should never be used for that purpose. There is in fact by both varieties lots of room for improvement, which only could be gained through scientific hybridization and which we hope will be realized to a certain extent at least in a comparative few years.
It is true a few better varieties of the American type like the Rush hazel and one or two others have been discovered or produced, but even they do not favorably compare with the better European varieties and the consequences are: If we want to grow hazel-nuts, we are at the present time and until such time has arrived, when through scientific hybridization substantial improvements over the present state and condition of our native hazel-nuts has been gained, actually compelled to rely on some of the European varieties, compelled to grow and cultivate a large assortment, from which to select the proper varieties for the different sections of our country.
I therefore have chosen as a title to my paper The Growing of Improved European Hazel-nuts in Nursery and Orchards in the State of New York and other Eastern and Northeastern States. I have chosen this title, because it indicates that a nursery of European hazel-plants is in existence and that orchards are planted, which is really equivalent with growing of European hazel-nuts for commercial purposes, otherwise there would be no need of such nurseries and no need of hazel-orchards.
I have alluded to this very subject in an earlier paper, but was at that time not as convinced of the final success as I am today.
We have since not only experienced a very severe and constant winter but a winter in a great many ways rather peculiar and unusual with early and heavy snowfall, which prevented in some sections of the eastern states the freezing of the ground in spite of the bitter cold. We have since seen another season of buds and blossoms and balmy breezes passing away never to return and a season of harvesting our fruit is rapidly approaching its end, but, ladies and gentlemen, during this now vanishing and for some sections of our country rather peculiar season, great opportunities were offered the close observer to study and investigate the different problems concerning the growing of European hazel-nuts in the northeastern states of our country.
Let us hope that not all of these opportunities and chances offered us have passed unobserved, but that some of those perplexed questions of filbert or hazel-nut growing in the east have been solved. To me this past season, though somewhat unusual, was very interesting and above all very instructive to growers of hazel-nuts.
It is my opinion that the peculiarity of this season has wonderfully aided to solve many of those unanswered questions about the growing of European hazel-nuts for commercial purposes in the Eastern States. Through practical experience and close observation throughout the whole season it certainly has convinced me beyond the slightest doubt in my mind that some varieties of European improved hazel-nuts properly selected for the different states or parts of the Eastern States can be profitably grown for commercial purposes. It will of course require time and work to find out the right and proper varieties for the different sections of our country. For Western New York I could select eight or ten varieties from my nursery that would prove A No. 1 for that part of the state of New York, probably a number of the same varieties would do equally as well in parts of adjacent states, but of that we are not sure until actual planting has been done and thoroughly tried out. The question now is how and where can we obtain the necessary varieties of hazel-plants, as the importation of most kinds of nursery stock, including all nutbearing trees from foreign countries is at the present time very much restricted, practically prohibited. To my judgment there is but one way out of this, if we want to grow hazel-nuts of foreign origin.