114 A PLAIN AND EASY ACCOUNT 



process much of the delicious aroma is lost. Like 

 other fungi, these cannot be eaten too fresh ; and 

 amateurs speak \vith delight of fresh truffles cooked in 

 the embers. Inferior as the dried truffles are, they ordi- 

 narily realize from fifteen to twenty shillings per pound 

 in the London market, and on the Continent this 

 fungus always obtains a good price, which has occa- 

 sioned many experiments being made on its artificial 

 culture. In woods in the south of France, truffles are 

 raised by watering the soil with water in which the 

 skins of these tubers have been rubbed. In Vaucluse 

 crops have been raised in a meadow manured with 

 truffle-parings. In the latter locality, also, seedling 

 oaks have been reared, and with them, what have been 

 termed oak-truffles. M. de Gasparin, one of the jurors 

 of the Paris Exposition, has reported the result of his 

 visit to one of these truffle-grounds at Carpentras. En- 

 couraged by the high price of truffles, the proprietor of 

 a somewhat stubborn soil determined to convert it into 

 a truffle-ground. The land was sown with the acorns 

 of the common and of the evergreen oak. In the fourth 

 year three truffles were found, and in about four years 

 more upwards of thirty pounds were collected. When 

 M. de Gasparin visited the plantation, upwards of two 

 pounds of truffles were gathered in a very poor part of 

 the plantation within an hour. All the truffles col- 

 lected on this ground have been taken at the base of 

 evergreen oaks ; but other plantations in Vaucluse pro- 

 duce them at the foot of the common oak. It has been 

 remarked, that the truffles produced about the latter 



