416 Cultivation of Truffles. 



on the other; as, for instance, by a root or a stone. Hence the 

 different forms of the tubers may be explained. Where the soil 

 is most moist, whether above or under the truffle, there it will 

 either rise up or sink deeper. The degree of power of attrac- 

 tion of the moisture in the earth, to that in the truffle, necessitates 

 such a change of place. In moist summers, and in wet winters, we 

 find the truffles near the surface, even projecting above it. In 

 dry summers, upon poor dry places in woods, they have often 

 to be dug from a depth of more than half a foot. Here is im- 

 posed upon them a greater pressure of superincumbent soil. If 

 the earth is not very light, they cannot be fully developed, and 

 therefore remain small. The largest are, consequently, in general, 

 found not deep under the earth, and in shaded light soil that 

 is somewhat moist; they are not, however, so well tasted as 

 those of middling size; they are also usually injured, and there- 

 fore of a bitter taste. The access of their enemies, viz. worms, 

 snails, and quadrupeds, is much facilitated when no deep stra- 

 tum of earth protects them against these attacks. 



As truffles were found in such soils only as contained many 

 putrid parts of vegetables, especially roots and leaves, or twigs 

 of trees; it was in old times the opinion, that these fungi were 

 neither plants nor animals, that they did not arise from germs, but 

 that they had been formed by a globular secretion and attraction 

 of matter found in the earth. According to this supposition, they 

 no further differ from minerals than that in them the materials 

 of the earth unite in forming a new substance; but here, in the 

 case of truffles, the new body is formed by parts of plants in so- 

 lution. Pliny, the Roman naturalist, was of the same opinion, 

 and adduces, as a proof, the experience of a Roman praetor, 

 Lartius Licinius. This person, a ^q.sn years before, had eaten 

 truffles in Spain, and had met with something hard in one of 

 them. Upon a closer examination he found a small Roman 

 silver coin, a penny (denarius) ; which, therefore, being acciden- 

 tally present in the mechanical accretion of its component parts, 

 was enclosed along with them. [See p. 398.] Taking the fact 

 for granted, it by no means proves the assumed opinion. If the 

 coin were really found in the body of the truffle, and had not in 

 the cooking accidentally found its way in, it had been pressed 

 in by the quick growth of the fungus. Being a hard body, it 

 did not give way to the truffle equally with the loose moist soil, 

 and was included in the substance of the fungus, as nowadays 

 small foreign bodies, such as stone and metals, are met with in 

 wood, and in the inside of more juicy plants. When such are 

 met with, they are supposed to have been accidentally included; 

 because it is known that a tree or plant continually increases in 

 circumference from its youth to its old age. Inhere is no reason 

 in these instances, from the presence of these foreign bodies in 



