Yet another interesting historical definition of the truffle.
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The truffle, Tuber cibarium Sibth., is a gasteromycetaceous fungus, a native of Britain, and growing naturally some inches below the surface. It is very common in the downs of Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Kent, whore dogs arc trained to scent it out, and where also it is sought out and devoured by pigs;—which on the Continent are used to discover the localities of this fungus, as dogs are in England. It is sent to the London market from different parts of England in a green state, and imported from the Continent sliced and dried ; the most celebrated truffles are those from the oak forests of Perigord. Various attempts have been made, both in Britain and on the Continent, to cultivate the truffle, but hitherto without success (G.M. I., VIII., and XIII.); but it would appear that Dr. Klotzsch, of Berlin, has ascertained that the best course is to take truffles which are no longer good for the table, being over-ripe, and nearly in a state of decomposition, diffusing a disagreeable odour; to break them into pieces, and place them two inches or three inches deep in the earth, in rather raised flat places, under copse or underwood, protected from the north and east winds. Truffles in the state in which they are eaten are never ripe, and therefore unfit for propagation.—(Gard. Chron. 1842, p. 287.)
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