chief ingredient, the famous "Truiles d'hiver"; enquiries would be instituted for the delicacy they had now 

 learned to appreciate, and those "eartliie excrescencies^" wliich to English naturalists had appeared a disease, 

 "callosities or warts bred in the earth-", and to English sense, "of a rank odour and unsavoury", under 

 foreign influence, were rescued from the pigs, who for anything we know to the contrary, might have been 

 seeking them on their own account ever since the days when that careful domesday estimate of English 

 property was made, in which "pannage for hogs" forms no inconsiderable item.' 



The addiction of swine to this delicate food being turned to account by man for liis own benefit, Herr 

 Krombholz gives amusing directions how to carry on the search ; " You must have a sow of five months 

 old, a good walker ! with her mouth shut up by a leathern strap ; recompense her for the Truffles with 

 acorns ; but as they (pigs) are not easily led, are stubborn and go astray and dig after a thousand other things, 

 there is but little to be done with them * * * dogs are better, of them, select a small poodle." 



Fosbroke says, " About forty years ago "Wmiam Leach came from the West Indies with some dogs 

 accustomed to hunt for Truffles, and proceeding along the coast from the Land's End in Cornwall to the 

 mouth of the river Thames, determined to fix on that spot where he found them most abundant. He took 

 four years to try the experiment, and at length settled at Patching (near Aiundel co. Sussex) where he 

 carried on the business of Truffle hunter till his death". 



The nature of the soil Leach thus selected for the field of his labours, is precisely that wliieh the 

 continental authorities point out as most favourable to the growth of the Truffle ; a rich mixed alluvium. 

 " It prefers clay mingled with sand and ferruginous particles, and requires the earth to be rather porous, 

 that heat and moisture may easily penetrate" (Persoon). It is commonly supposed in England that the 

 Truffle is produced exclusively under beech trees, and this erroneous opinion prevents its being sought 

 elsewhere, although its habitat is ((uite as often beneath other trees. " Its darling abodes are hilly, shadowy 

 yet light, and lofty woods of chesnut, oak, and beech ; never in pine forests ; among soil formed of decayed 

 vegetation, in dyke-earth mixed with sand, in open woodland districts where rain and worms act* easily; 

 damp warm summers are most favourable". It must be remembered that when foreign authorities cite 

 " woods" as the habitat of funguses, they do not mean the close impervious copses, matted \Tith coarse grass, 

 briars, &c., and rank with decajing vegetation, English underwoods, sacred to Pheasants ; but those forest- 

 glades which the deer may haunt, without fear of entangling their antlers, nregidarly canopied by trees of 

 lofty bole, "de la haute futaie" ; such spots as the lover of the picturesque finds in our New Eorest, and the 

 "melancholy Jacques" reposed in, in the fungus-rich Ardennes. It is quite possible to detect the presence 

 of Truffles by carefully observing such places as are suitable for their growth, the earth being slightly upheaved 

 and cracked above the " nests " ; when this is the case, their pecidiar smell is very perceptible ; indeed, I am 

 informed that in Hampsliire, sport is often spoiled by the dogs losing scent of Eeynard as they near these 

 strongly odorous spots ; perhaps he cuiniingly takes across them ; be this as it may, " the field " on these 

 occasions does not use strict raycological terms to characterise the Truffles. 



Probably twelvemonths are required for the entire developement of the T. clbaritm. In the early spring 

 it is but a tubercle as large as a pea, reddish or violet colour ; it increases in size but retains the purple hue 

 till June ; the flesh during this period is quite white ; in this state it is, according to Paulet, the " Tubera 

 minima nucis magnitudine, coloris purpurei " of Ray ; in July it becomes externally grained and rough, the 



' Gerarde. 



2 Such opinious were borrowed from Pliny, and the ancient naturalists wlio considered them a disease, 

 "tumor terrsB " or " swelHng of the earth ". Pliny, however, divides tubers into two classes, the white and the 

 black, and describes both as articles for the table. 



^ A German critic suggests that perhaps the " Pig-nuts " which Caliban thought so great a dehcacy, were 

 Truffles, which Evelyn and Posbroke both style " earth-nuts " and not the common Bunium, the earth-mit of our 

 pastures. This is quite a novel "nut" for the commentators, and ought to be appreciated. 



■* Krombholz. 



