418 Cultivation of Tniffles. 



He, therefore, who can take for new truffle beds wood land, 

 especially that wliich for centuries has produced the above-men- 

 tioned trees, spares both time and expense. 



But, whether the truffle plantation be made in a wood or a 

 garden, the first requisite is a somewhat moist soil in a low situ- 

 ation. In level ground, such soil is generally found in the 

 vicinity of brooks, rivers, lakes, and meadows. The ground 

 itself, however, must not contair) any sharp or sour component 

 parts, but must be mellow and fertile. Least of all are adapted 

 to the purpose situations in the neighbourliood of morasses or 

 turf moors; and especially those low situations the subsoil of 

 which is full of saline or sour matter. This is easily known by 

 the reeds, horsetail (£quisetum), coarse kinds of grass, and 

 mosses, which grow upon their surface, and, whether green or 

 dry, are rejected by cattle and sheep, or only eaten by them from 

 excessive hunger. 



He who has no such mellow soil, in a depressed situation, upon 

 his property, may most easily form it by art in the neighbourhood 

 of springs, or at the foot of a rising ground; but the first plant- 

 ation is thereby proportionally rendered more expensive. The 

 ground designed for the cultivation of truffles must, in the first 

 place, be dug out from 4 ft. to 5 ft. deep, and be lined at the 

 bottom, and on the sides, with a stratum of clay or very fat 

 loam of a foot thick, that the spring water which is conducted 

 to it may not strain through, and run off. If the subsoil be 

 loam or clay, the thickness of the stratum of clay to be placed 

 upon it may be diminished ; but, if it be a dry sand, it must be 

 more than a foot thick. This artificial depression is then filled 

 with earth artificially prepared, and now the spring, or small 

 brook, is turned upon it. Truffles certainly require a moist soil, 

 but they cannot endure boggy ground or standing water; a ditch 

 must, therefore, be cut to carry away all superfluous water. 

 This ditch is either opened or shut accordingly as a superfluity 

 or want of water renders necessary. But if, in very hot dry 

 summers, the supply of water should itself fail, the truffle beds 

 must be sufficiently moistened with pure river water. This is 

 the expedient to which recourse must be had in dry situations, 

 that neither possess a spring, nor a small brook for watering a 

 plantation of truffles. Since only small beds, and not large 

 fields, are taken for the cultivation of truffles, the greatest rare 

 may be taken in the preparatory steps, the expense of which 

 will, however, never be so considerable as to be much felt by 

 the landed propiietor. He, therefore, who has upon ins pro- 

 perty no such mixture of earths as the growth of truffles re- 

 quires, must endeavour to obtain it artificially. 



We find the most and finest truffles in a light, ferruginous, 

 calcareous soil. Such a one must, therefore, also be given to 



