To admit the hazel to rank among forest trees may seem like magnifying a molehill into a mountain; but it was a growth so important to the primitive community, as the only native tree contributing to winter provender, that it would be ungrateful to omit it. I was greatly impressed by this fact when, many years ago, we were exploring "crannogs," or lake dwellings, in the south-west of Scotland, in all of which nut-shells were found in quantity.

One instance was particularly remarkable. Dirskelvin Loch, a small sheet of water in Old Luce Parish, contained a very large crannog, built, as we roughly calculated, with between 2,000 and 3,000 trees. The loch having been drained away, we proceeded to exfoliate the crannog. In going along what had been the north-east margin of the vanished loch, I found it deeply covered with hazel-nut shells—many, many cartloads of them. Evidently they were kitchen waste from the crannog, drifted to that quarter before the prevailing south-west wind.

If the reader does not consider that the food it produces justifies admission of the hazel among forest trees, let him meet me at Merton Parish Church, on Tweedside, turn off the main road to the left at Clint Mains, and, as we travel towards Bemersyde, he shall see in the road fence on his right hand a row of hazels which it would be a misuse of terms to style bushes. Speaking from recollection, they stand about 25 feet high, with single stems that must girth not less than 18 inches to 2 feet. The fact is, the hazel does not often get a chance of attaining its full stature, being commonly cut for copse or treated as undergrowth.

He, however, who aims at growing hazel timber need not waste time in educating our British Corylus avellana, but plant the Turkish hazel, C. colurna, which is perfectly hardy in our climate. It is represented by very few specimens in these islands, albeit it was grown in England as "the filbeard of Constantinople" so long ago as 1665. The finest trees of this species are at Syon House, Brentford, the tallest of which was 75 feet high in 1904, with a girth of 6 feet 9 inches, and a clean bole of 30 feet. The timber is said to have a beautiful texture, pinkish white, and sometimes grained like bird's-eye maple. French cabinetmakers import it under the name of noisetier.

Returning to our native hazel, we no longer depend upon its fruit to sustain us through the winter, though large quantities of the cultivated varieties, filbert and cob-nut, are still grown in Kent for the market. Of the wood, it can only be said that it produces excellent walking-sticks, and has no equal in hurdle-making. Modern anglers have no use for it, preferring greenheart and split cane, though of old it was considered a sine qua non for rod-making. Thus the author of The Boke of Saint Albans prescribes:

"Ye that woll be crafty in anglynge, ye must fyrste lerne to make your harnays, that is to wyte your rodde.... And how ye shall make your rodde crafty here I shall teche you. Ye shall kytte betwene Myghelmas and Candylmas a fayr staffe of a fadome and an halfe longe, and arme grete, of hasyll, willowe, or aspe."

The prescription goes on for drying, straightening, and boring out the middle of the staff, and then—

"In the same season take a fayr yerde of grene hasyll and beth hym evyn and streyghte, and let it drye with the staffe, and whan they ben drye make the yerde mete into the hole in the staffe, unto halfe the length of the staffe.... And thus shall ye make you a rodde soo prevy that ye may walke therewyth, and there shall noo man wyte where abowte ye goo."

Seeing that the staff was to be "a fadome and an halfe longe" (9 feet), and as thick as his arm, the wayfarer's progress might not be so "prevy" as is set forth if water bailiffs were on the lookout!