C. E. BROOME — TRUFFLES AND TRUFFLE-CULTURE. 



19 



would seem that they succeed as well in ground that has been 

 stirred and manured as in that which has been left to its natural 

 condition. 



Some notion may be obtained of the extent to which the trade 

 in Truffles is carried in France, when we read that in the market 

 of Apt alone 1600 kilogrammes (about 3500 lbs.) are exposed for 

 sale every week in the height of the season, and that the lowest 

 estimate of the quantity sold during the winter amounts to 15,000 

 kilogrammes (nearly 33,000 lbs. weight) . According to another ac- 

 count, the Department of Yaucluse yields from 25,900 to 30,009 

 kilogrammes annually. The vast quantity that must therefore be 

 procured and sold in all the French provinces where they grow, 

 and the large revenue arising therefrom, should be a great in- 

 ducement to the proprietors of suitable localities to attempt 

 their cultivation in England. 



Many trials have been made to subject these vegetables to a 

 regular system of culture, but hitherto without success. "We owe 

 to the Count de Borch and to M. de Bornholz the chief accounts 

 of these attempts. They inform us that a compost was prepared 

 of pure mould and vegetable soil, mixed with dry leaves and 

 sawdust, in which, when properly moistened, mature Truffles 

 were placed in winter, either whole' or in fragments, and that 

 after the lapse of some time small Truffles were found in the 

 compost. But the result was discouraging rather than other- 

 wise. The most successful plan consisted in sowing acorns over 

 a considerable extent of land of a calcareous nature ; and when the 

 young oaks had attained the age of ten or twelve years, Truffles 

 were found in the intervals between the trees. This process 

 was carried on in the neighbourhood of Loudun, where Truffle- 

 beds had formerly existed, but where they had long ceased to be 

 productive — a fact indicating the aptitude of the soil for the pur- 

 pose. In this case no attempt was made to produce Truffles by 

 placing ripe specimens in the earth ; but they sprang up of them- 

 selves, from spores probably contained in the soil. The young 

 trees were left rather wide apart, aud were cut for the first time 

 about the twelfth year from the sowing, and afterwards at inter- 

 vals of from seven to nine years. Truffles w r ere 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, a remedy for which might have been found by thinning out 

 the trees ; but this would not be adopted till all the barren tracts, 



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