hardiness to hybrids with the European and Asiatic hazels, when the time
comes for horticulturists of Canada to make fortunes from their hazel
orchards.

In Europe and Asia and in the northern parts of Africa several species
of hazels are extremely important commercially, sometimes furnishing the
chief source of income for large districts, very much as wheat or corn
make special crops over large areas in this country.

These foreign hazels have not been raised successfully in our country,
excepting very recently on the northwest coast. The reason for failure
depends almost wholly upon the presence of a blight, _Cryptosporella
anomala_, which belongs to our native hazels. In the course of
evolution, host and parasite have come to be peers of each other, and
consequently this blight does not menace our native hazels very
seriously. Introduced species, with the exception, perhaps, of the
Byzantine hazel, appear to carry a protoplasm which has not learned to
resist the attacks of the blight. All organic warfare is fundamentally
enzymic in its nature, and it is possible that through process of
natural selection some of the foreign hazels would eventually become
securely established in this country, without aid from the nurseryman.

As a matter of fact, the hazel blight is very easily managed. Not
knowing this at first, I allowed almost all of my exotic hazels to
become destroyed, and a number of nurserymen told me of having given up
the problem as hopeless. Recently I have learned of the ease with which
the disease may be controlled, and now feel very comfortable in its
presence.

The blight is of slow development and chooses the larger hazel stems for