OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 355 



having in his pocket several large truffles found in this 

 neighbourhood.* He says, these roots are not to be found in 

 deep woods, but in narrow hedge-rows and the skirts of 

 coppices. Some truffles, he informed us, lie two feet within 

 the earth, and some quite on the surface ; the latter, he 

 added, have little or no smell, and are not so easily dis- 

 covered by the dogs as those that lie deeper. Half-a-crown 

 a pound was the price which he asked for this commodity. 



Truffles never abound in wet winters and springs. f They 

 are in season, in different situations, at least nine months in 

 the year. WHITE. 



TKEMELLA NOSTOC. Though the weather may have been 

 ever so dry and burning, yet, after two or three wet days, 

 this jelly-like substance abounds on the walks. WHITE. 



FAIRY BJNGS. J The cause, occasion, call it what you will, 

 of fairy rings, subsists in the turf, and is convey able with it; 

 for the turf of my garden-walks, brought from the down 

 above, abounds with those appearances, which vary their 

 shape, and shift situation continually, discovering themselves 

 now in circles, now in segments, and sometimes in irregular 

 patches and spots. Wherever they obtain, puff-balls abound; 

 the seeds of which were doubtless brought in the turf. 



WHITE. 



* Mr. Herbert says that many years ago an immense stock of very small 

 truffles crowded together under a young cedar-tree upon the lawn near Lord 

 Carnarvon's charming seat at Highclere. The experiment of transplanting 

 several of these and setting them under beech-trees, was tried successfully. 

 They increased in size, and became much finer than those \vhich were 

 left. ED. 



f 4 In those years when there is a failure of mushrooms, there is generally 

 a failure of truffles, so that some secret cause influences alike these analogous 

 productions of nature. ED. 



J The fungi tribe, from their circular shape, shed their seed in a circle 

 around them. This in time produces regular circles or segments. The 

 freshness of the grass is probably produced by the moisture derived from the 

 fungi. A man on the Brighton downs who was employed in digging for 

 flints, assured me that when he worked under a fairy ring he never could per- 

 ceive any difference in the sub-soil. ED. 



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