100 Instructions for Trujfle-Searching. 



since the taking up of better-organised bulbous roots is 

 certainly not called hunting. No indication of the idea of 

 liunting occurs in the acquisition of truffles, except that they are 

 usually sought for by trained tame animals, and by particular 

 persons whose employment it now is ; though this has not 

 exclusively, or for a considerable time, been the case. It would 

 be better, therefore, to make use of the term truffle-searching 

 than truffle-hunting, as some writers who make slight mention 

 of truffle-hunting have very properly observed ; for example, 

 Justi in his Technological Dictionary^ and the editor of the 

 Practical Forester ajid Gamekeepe?; and several others. In the 

 mean time this shall not prevent us from making use of the 

 expression that has been adopted, and has once been current ; 

 the question here is merely a verbal one, and in verbis simus 

 faciles. The use of an expression is not, however, entirely a 

 matter of indifference, inasmuch as it may easily mislead us to 

 adjudge the benefit of truffles to the chase, and to him who has 

 the right of hunting, as in many countries is actually the case. 

 It by no means belongs to the chase, but to the beneficial 

 interest in the forest or wood ; because it occurs almost exclu- 

 sively only in woods and wood soil, and not throughout the 

 whole hunting district. In the proper sense of the word it can 

 be specially enumerated only amongst the accessory advantages 

 of woods. 



The truffle search is practised in various ways : methodically, 

 by proper truffle-hunters with dogs or swine that are trained, in 

 which way only ripe truffles are found ; or by arbitrary irregular 

 digging, in those places where indications of the existence of 

 truffles are perceived, in which way truffles of all ages are got, 

 and many embryos (if I may use the expression) are destroyed, 

 the further formation of truffles is prevented, and the truffle 

 district ruined. 



The last kind may be compared to what the unsportsmanlike 

 chase of hunting a trail is in hunting, or the unforesterlike use 

 of the productions of the forest is in the management of a 

 forest, and ought by no means to be permitted, but always 

 punished as a forest prodigality. Besides, truffles in later times 

 have become considerably more rare. The many falls of woods, 

 and exterminations of forests, which have been occasioned by 

 the present wars and the former calamities of the country, the 

 increase of population, and the converting of many woods to 

 other purposes, have in several districts in a great measure 

 extirpated truffles, and consequently they ought not to be made 

 still more scarce, and in whole districts entirely destroyed. 



I shall, therefore, speak more at large only of the methodical 

 truffle-hunting with dogs, by means of which that with swine 

 has been, in later times, in a great measure supplanted ; and 



