Four wild varieties of hazels, which had
unusual characteristics such as tremendous bearing and large size nuts
and others having very early maturing or very thin shelled nuts were
used as the female parents in making the crosses. Pollen was obtained
from other parts of the U. S. or from filbert bushes which were growing
on the place. Crosses included pollen of the Barcelona, Duchilly, Red
Aveline, White Aveline, Purple Aveline, the Italian Red, Daviana and
several hybrids between other filberts and hazels. By 1945 the number of
these plants were in the neighborhood of 2000 and by 1952 considerable
knowledge had been gained as to the hardiness, blight resistance to the
common hazel blight (known scientifically as cryptosporella anomala),
freedom from the curculio of the hazelnuts (commonly known as the hazel
weevil) and resistance to other insect pests. Also, considerable data
had been accumulated by cataloging over 650 trees each year for five
years; cataloging included varied and detailed studies of their growth,
bearing habits, ability to resist blight, curculio and other insects,
the size of the nut, the thinness of the shell and the flavor of the
kernel. Several books of all this detail were accumulated in trying to
nail down several commercial varieties that would be propagated from
this vast amount of material.
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