The Nut Culturist: A Treatise on Propogation, Planting, and Cultivation of Nut Bearing Trees and Shrubs Adapted to the Climate of the United StatesFuller, Andrew S. (Andrew Samuel)
Science
The Nut Culturist: A Treatise on Propogation, Planting, and Cultivation of Nut Bearing Trees and Shrubs Adapted to the Climate of the United States
Fuller, Andrew S. (Andrew Samuel)
Nuts
In selecting a location for a filbert orchard, an open, airy one
would probably be preferable to a spot so sheltered as to cause the
flowers to appear so early as to be injured by frosts. Furthermore,
I would warn cultivators to keep as far away as possible from any
hedgerows or plantation of the wild native hazel bushes, for these
are always loaded with disease germs that are fatal to the foreign
species. We might reasonably suppose that filberts would succeed
better in the Southern than in the Northern States, but if the
experience of those who have tried them there count for anything,
then these nuts are not adapted to the South, owing to the fact that
the flowers almost invariably push out during warm days in winter,
and these are destroyed later by frosts. In the more elevated
regions of the northern border of the Southern, and in similar
locations in the Middle States, these nuts will doubtless thrive, or
at least the climate will prove congenial. The more equable the
climate and free from extremes in temperature, the better; but the
most important element in this country is moisture, especially in
summer, when the nuts are filling out; and the best way to supply
this, where irrigation cannot be practiced, is to keep the ground
around the trees continually covered with a mulch of leaves or other
coarse vegetable matter.
=Planting and Pruning.=--The space to be allowed between the plants,
when set out for bearing, will, of course, depend very much upon the
size they are expected to attain. Those varieties which assume and
remain in the bush form may be planted very close together, or not
more than six to eight feet between the plants; but those which
become small trees must be given more room. The larger European
sorts, which are at present the only ones worth cultivating for
their nuts, should be set ten or twelve feet apart, and the rows
fifteen to sixteen feet, then if properly pruned they will shade the
ground and be in a convenient form for gathering the crop. The trees
may be planted in the orchard when quite small, and some kind of
vegetable crop grown among them for the first two or three years,
but I would prefer keeping the plants in nursery rows until they
were four or five feet high, and then transplant to the orchard, and
set a short, stout stake by the side of each, to keep the main stem
in an upright position until the tree is well established.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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