of the latter are still living and producing nuts.

In April 1928, I planted a dozen Jones hybrid hazels but only two of
them survived more than two years. I think the reason they lasted as
well as they did was that around each plant I put a guard made of laths
four feet high, bound together with wire and filled with forest leaves.
I drove the laths several inches into the ground and covered them with
window screening fastened down with tacks to keep mice out of the
leaves. Although somewhat winter-killed, most of the plants lived during
the first winter these guards were used. The second winter, more plants
died, and I didn't use the guards after that.

The two Jones hybrids that lived produced flowers of both sexes for
several years but they did not set any nuts. One day while reading a
report of one of the previous conventions of the Northern Nut Growers'
Association, I discovered an article by Conrad Vollertsen in which he
stressed the importance of training filberts into a single truncated
plant, allowing no root sprouts or suckers to spring up since such a
condition prevents the bearing of nuts. I followed his advice with my
two Jones hybrids and removed all surplus sprouts. This resulted in more
abundant flowers and some abortive involucres but still no nuts
developed. In the spring of 1940, I systematically fertilized numerous
pistillate flowers of these plants with a pollen mixture. On the
branches so treated, a fairly good crop of nuts similar to those of the
orthodox Jones hybrid appeared.

I had cut off a few branches from the Jones hybrids when I received them
and grafted these to wild hazels. This had been suggested by Robert
Morris in his book, "Nut Growing," as an interesting experiment which
might prove to be practical. It did not prove to be so for me for