260 FUNGI. 



no attempt was made to produce truffles by placing ripe speci- 

 mens in the earth, but they sprang up themselves from spores 

 probably contained in the soil. The young trees were left 

 rather wide apart, and were cut, for the first time, about the 

 twelfth year after sowing, and afterwards at intervals of from 

 seven to nine years. Truffles were thus obtained for a period 

 of from twenty-five to thirty years, after which the plantations 

 ceased to be productive, owing, it was said, to the ground being 

 too much shaded by the branches of the young trees. It is the 

 opinion of the Messrs. Tulasne that the regular cultivation of 

 the truffle in gardens can never be so successful as this so-called 

 indirect culture at Loudun, but they think that a satisfactory 

 result might be obtained in suitable soils by planting fragments 

 of mature truffles in wooded localities, taking care that the other- 

 conditions of the spots selected should be analogous to those of 

 the regular truffle-grounds, and they recommend a judicious 

 thinning of the trees and clearing the surface from brushwood, 

 etc., which prevents at once the beneficial efTccts of rain and of 

 the direct sun's rays. A truffle collector stated to Mr. Broome 

 that whenever a plantation of beech, or beech and fir, is made on 

 the chalk districts of Salisbury Plain, after the lapse of a few 

 vears truffles are produced, and that these plantations continue 

 productive for a period of from ten to fifteen years, after which 

 they cease to be so. 



M. Grasparin reported to the jurors of the Paris Exhibition of 

 1855, concerning the operations of M. Rousseau, of Carpentras, 

 on the production of oak truffles in France. The acorns of ever- 

 green and of common oaks were sown about five yards apart. 

 In the fourth year of the plantation three truffles were found ; at 

 the date of the report the trees were nine years old, and over a 

 yard in height. Sows were employed to search for the truffles. 

 Although these plantations consist both of the evergreen and 

 common oak, truffles cannot be gathered at the base of the latter 

 species, it so happening that it arrives later at a state of pro- 

 duction. The common oak, however, produces truffles like the 

 evergreen oak, this report states, for a great number of tho 

 natural truffle-grounds at Yaucluse are planted with common 



