2024

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

considered excellent for gunpowder jit is also used for making crayonsfor drawing, being, for that purpose,charred in closed iron tubes. Theprincipal use of the hazel in England,at the present time, is as a fruit tree;and a great quantity of the nuts, bothof the wild and cultivated kinds, aresold in the English markets. “ Be-sides those raised at home,” saysM‘Culloch, “ we import nuts fromdifferent parts of France , Portugal ,and Spain , but principally from thelatter. The Spanish nuts in thehighest estimation, though sold underthe name of Barcelona nuts, are notreally shipped at that city, but atTarragona , a little more to the south.

Mr. Inglis says that the annual averageexport of nuts from Tarragona isfrom 25,000 to 30,000 bags, of fourbags to the ton. The cost was, freeon board, in autumn, 1830, 17s. 6 d. abag. (Spain in 1830, vol. ii. p. 362.)

The entries of nuts for home con-sumption amount to from 100,000 to125,000 bushels a year; the duty of2s. a bushel producing from 10,000/.to 12,550/. clear.” ( Diet. of Com.,p. 853.) Mr. M‘Culloch adds, “ Thekernels have a mild, farinaceous, oilytaste, agreeable to most palates. Akind of chocolate has been preparedfrom them ; and they have been sometimes made into bread. The expressedoil of hazel nuts is little inferior to that of almonds.” Evelyn tells us that hazelnuts, though considered unwholesome to those who were asthmatic, were, inhis “ time, thought to be fattening ; and, when full ripe, the filberts especially,if peeled in warm water, as they blanch almonds, make a pudding very little, ifat all, inferior to what our ladies make of almonds.” (vol. i. p. 217.) The oilmade from hazel nuts, which is usually called nut oil, is best made in themiddle of winter ; as, if made sooner, the nut yields less oil; and, if later, it isapt to become rancid. It is extracted in the same manner as the walnut oil.(See p. 1429.). It is never made in England, and but rarely in France .

As an ornamental tree, the hazel, when trained to a single stem, forms avery handsome object for a lawn, near a winter’s residence; because it notonly retains its leaves a long time in autumn, after they have assumed a richyellow colour, but, as soon as they drop, they discover the nearly full-grownmale catkins, which often come into full flower at the end of October, andremain on the tree in that state throughout the winter; and, in days of brightsunshine in February and March, when slightly moved by the wind, they havea gay and most enlivening appearance. The length of time the leaves remainon the tree, and their rich yellow, reader the hazel, as we have already ob-served (p. 2019.), one of the most ornamental of all deciduous shrubs asundergrowth ; it ranking, in this respect, with the oak and the beech. Thefoliage of the birch and the willow, two of the commonest undergrowths inindigenous woods, is meagre, and drops off suddenly; while the leaves of theash and the chestnut drop off early, when they have scarcely changed colour;and, hence, these trees, as undergrowths, are far inferior to the hazel in woodswhich form conspicuous features in the view from a mansion, or where orna-

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