ning to work with the filbert. You only have to have three
compatible plants. If you have more, you will have more nuts. I see no
reason why anyone who owns a city lot cannot grow filberts. They are
much easier to take care of, and you are not going to prejudice the
plant by having it associate with its wild cousin, and I think you will
find a lot of enjoyment in the filbert bush.

MR. SLATE: What variety do you think is best? What two or three would
you plant?

MR. SILVIS: For eating I like DuChilly, and the catkin is hardy with me,
and I am between the 40th and 41st parallel. I'd say anyone who lives
from Iowa to the East Coast within one hundred miles north or south of
the 40th parallel should have the same luck that I have. And as to a
group planting, I would suggest, as you recommended to me when we first
started out the Medium Long, Cosford and Italian Red. If you want only
two bushes, Italian Red and DuChilly will work well together.

MR. MCDANIEL: Do you have Medium Long?

MR. SILVIS: Yes, I do.

MR. MCDANIEL: Is that doing well?

MR. SILVIS: I don't think it fruits as well as Cosford or DuChilly.
That's been my experience. My DuChilly was plastered with nuts last year
and this year, and I believe it's due to the Italian Red which New York
Fruit Testing Laboratory sold me.

MR. SLATE: Thank you.

MR. WHITFORD: Do you fertilize those bushes?

MR. SILVIS: Due to the fact I have started to mulch with sawdust I have
been using nitrate and rock phosphate, so my teeth don't fall out when I
chew them.

MR. SLATE: I crack mine with a hand cracker, I don't crack them with my
teeth.

DR. COLBY: Mr. Chairman, we can grow filberts. How does the chairman
keep the squirrels from eating them?

MR. STOKE: I will tell you that.

MR. SLATE: Mr. Stoke raises his nut trees in the Sunny South, and he has
problems down there that we don't have up north. I think he has to worry
a lot more about winter killing than we do way up north where we are in
Central New York. What's been your experience with some of the varieties
and what are your principal cultural problems with the filberts?

MR. STOKE: I wish to answer Dr. Colby's query about squirrels. I find
that squirrels are very highly allergic to these BB caps or the CP caps
used in a 22 rifle. It works. In my back yard there is a Brixnut
filbert, which originated in Oregon. I guess it's been there 15 years.
There are four trunks to it, the largest about 16 inches in