f a memorial. The
tree is the memorial the individual can erect, care for and protect.
Then just consider what the tree gives the planter in return--an
affection that only comes from the bosom of the earth, to which the
loved one for whom the tree was planted, has returned.

You gentlemen are missing a great opportunity if you do not get squarely
behind the American Forestry Association and help it spread the message
of the tree, Nature's masterpiece and greatest gift to man, and in doing
so urge the value of planting trees that produce food wherever such
trees can give better service than those which do not produce food.

* * * * *

THE PRESIDENT: The next number on our program is A Nursery of Improved
Filberts, by Conrad Vollertsen, of Rochester, N. Y.

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