THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Sept. 1, 1865. 
84 ON TRUFFLES. 
come from. Wiltshire ami Hampshire, and the opinions of those who 
make it their busines to collect them coincide completely with those of 
Messrs. Tulasne cited above. I have been informed by one of 
these men, 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 years 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. It has been observed that the species 
most available for culinary purposes with us is Tuber cesttvum, a species 
considered in France as of far less value than T. melanosporum and T. 
brumale, and it might be worth while to obtain well-matured specimens 
of these species from France, and distribute them while quite fresh in 
some locality producing our indigenous kinds, to ascertain if we could 
not thus obtain a superior race of tiuffles. Tuber cesthum is commonly 
worth about half-a-crown per pound in Co vent Garden, whilst in Italy 
Tuber magnatum fetches Irom fifteen to seventeen francs, and T. melano- 
sporum almost as much. Should horticulturists be tempted to try their 
skill in the artificial production of these fungi, they should bear in 
mind the conditions most suitable to their nature, as above recorded. 
They might succeed, for instance, in producing them in filbert-planta- 
tions, or in gardens thickly set with fruit-trees, and they should plant 
mature specimens in well-trenched ground on a calcareous substratum, 
and be careful not to stir the soil to any depth till the autumn or winter 
of the following year, in order not to disturb the mycelium ; and it 
would be well, perhaps, in case they find a successful result, not to take 
too largely of the crop for the first year or two, but to give them time 
to establish themselves thoroughly in the locality. It would seem, 
however, that, when once established, deep stirrings of the soil would 
tend rather to encourage than to check their increase, as giving the 
mycelium a lighter soil in which to vegetate, and preventing the growth 
of roots of surrounding trees, &c, which might deprive the truffles of 
the requisite nutriment. 
It might be well to try the growth of Tuber macrosporum, as it is an 
indigenous species, and might become a source of profit, notwithstand- 
ing its garlic odour. Those who possess woods or plantations of beech 
in calcareous soils, which are not already productive of truffles, might 
succeed perhaps in rendering them so, by trenching patches of ground 
beneath the trees, so as to clear away the brushwood, grass, and roots 
for a considerable space, and planting ripe truffles in the trenched 
spaces, and then allowing time for them to produce their mycelium. 
And when the roots of surrounding trees again encroach on the selected 
spots, they might be checked by deep digging around their margins. 
