Truffles are thus an 
     
     integral part of the 
     
     web of animal and 
     
     plant life in a for- 
     
     est. The Perigord 
     
     truffle thrives on 
     
     the roots of oak 
     
     trees. It is culti- 
     
     vated in Europe by 
     
     planting groves of 
     
     inoculated oak trees 
     
     on calcerious ter- 
     
     rain known to favour 
     
     the truffle symbiosis. 
     
     Considerable success 
     
     has been achieved 
     
     TUBER MAGNATUM with this method in 
     
     ithe white truffle from the Italian Piedmont limited areas of 
     
     . - France but there 
     
     remains the problem of finding and harvesting truffles. 
     
    

    
     Jean Pagnol in his charming and practical book on truffle cul- 
     
     ture, 'La Truffe', talks of the use of pigs and dogs to root out these 
     
     treasures but he also mentions three other more esoteric methods for 
     
     those not fortunate enough to possess a truffle hound. He explains 
     
     that you can find truffles by sound. When one is above a truffle a 
     
     change in resonance can be heard when one taps the ground. He remarks 
     
     that this requires a very well trained ear: Another method is to go 
     
     out after a rain shower; as the ground dries out it will tend to crack 
     
     just above the truffle giving the clue as to where to dig. Finally the 
     
     truffler can get clues from swarms of truffle flies. The trick is to 
     
     get to the truffle before they do. Every truffle hunter has a favour- 
     
     ite tool for extracting truffles, usually some kind of small rake or 
     
     cultivator. 
     
    

    
     Truffle hunters in North America do not have this wealth of prac- 
     
     tical experience. They tend to rely on their knowledge of mycorrhizal 
     
     relationships combined with the time-honoured method of grovelling 
     
     about in the dirt. This meets with limited success. On a recent truf- 
     
     fle hunting outing in the Gatineau hills, four avid hunters failed to 
     
     turn up one specimen. However, one of the party had found a false 
     
     truffle the day before in a Quebec City park. It was perched on the 
     
     branch of a tree: He grabbed it and rushed it back to the lab for id- 
     
     entification without a thought for the squirrel who would return 
     
     later to retrieve her gourmet cache.