428 Cultivation of Triyffles. 



by these creatures, as they betray their place of growth by the 

 smell which they diffuse around them. 



In a lofty wood, inhabited by wild swine, it is not advisable to 

 make a plantation of truffles : the swine would easily discover and 

 destroy them, especially as they are fond of low situations. Red 

 deer and roes, which scrape out and eat them, are less danger- 

 ous. Where, therefore, many red deer are in a forest, the new 

 plantation must be secured from their attacks by a high hedge. 

 This also keeps off the fox, which attacks them in the same 

 manner ; so also does the badger, though this animal is become 

 too rare, in many parts of Germany, to do much damage; and, if 

 one should be desirous of breaking into the trufHe plantation, it 

 would be discovered and become the welcome prey of the game- 

 keeper. More dangerous than these are the squirrels, which 

 are very dexterous in scraping up the tubers and eating them : 

 all the squirrels which are found in the vicinity of the new 

 truffle plantations, must be shot. Mice also seek truffles that 

 are ripe, at which time they betray themselves by their smell. 

 If the plantation be surrounded by a hedge, the mice may be 

 poisoned, which in one that is not hedged about cannot be done, 

 lest the game should be destroyed. Mice live in woods gene- 

 rally only in society ; and, by a little attention, may, in separate 

 places, be easily dug out, caught, and extirpated. 



The security of truffles is combined with the greater difficul- 

 ties in pleasure-grounds, which usually adjoin the open fields, 

 from which they are visited by field mice. Here, catching and 

 poisoning them is a security only when, at the same time, the 

 whole of the environs can be freed from these voracious 

 animals. Owls and crows are the greatest enemies of mice. If 

 these birds, especially the first, can be habituated to dwell in 

 the neighbourhood of trufHe plantations (which, through com- 

 plete protection, it is easy to effect), mice will not be able to do any 

 great mischief, at least not greater than in every other garden 

 and field plantation. Snails, both the red and the black wood 

 snails, are only in wet weather injurious to plantations in which 

 the truffles lie too shallow, or rise quite above the surface. 

 Worms do much more damage, especially in such truffle plant- 

 ations as are made in gardens or pleasure-grounds. The drawing 

 here of worms from the environs cannot be avoided, as, from the 

 cover of leaves, they lie warm in winter, and, from the quiet 

 which the truffle beds enjoy, are not disturbed in summer. The 

 larvae of many species of beetle (viz. of the ilielolontha Z)er- 

 mestes piniperda, M. horticola, M. solstitialis, A'pate capucina), 

 the maggots of several flies, scolopendrae, millepedes, &c., 

 penetrate the truffles in all directions, give them a bitter taste, 

 and often are the cause of their death. That new plantations 

 sometimes fail is not to be attributed either to a process that is 



