The cork in your ink bottle is the bark of an oak tree. Go to Portugal or to Northern Africa, and you may see the cork, harvest in progress in July or August. There is no place to go for genuine cork except to a small ever green oak that rarely reaches a height over thirty feet. When these trees are twenty-five years old, a hard, thin layer of bark is stripped off. This is a valuable tan bark, but it is not in the least corky. The tree now produces a spongy bark entirely different from the first. It is not dis turbed for eight or ten years. This is stripped off. It is the poor quality of bark which fisher men use to float their nets with.
Ten years later the bark is stripped again. It is better in quality than the first. Each ten years brings the bark stripper again to the tree. In the fiftieth year, the bark is of the finest quality, and for fifty years that follow there are five strippings of bark of the highest grade. Then the quality becomes poorer. The trees are cut down, the bark is sold to the tanners, and the wood is used for charcoal or for fuel.
It is a very particular job to get the cork off and leave the under layer uninjured. The trunk is stripped from the ground to the point where it branches, and the inner " mother bark " must not be bruised, for no more cork will grow on any bruised spot. Two circular cuts are made, one at the top, one at the bottom of the columnar trunk, then two opposite slits are made dividing the bark of the trunk into two halves. These curved plates are worked off by inserting a wedged-shaped tool between the bark and the trunk, and gradually working it further in until the whole curved plate of cork comes off. These two big sheets are steamed and flattened, then bound in bundles, and shipped to wholesale dealers in cork.
The owner of a grove of cork oaks must wait ten years between crops of the bark, but every year three crops of acorns are borne on these trees. The pigs of the owner, turned into the grove, fatten on this rich food. So the little trees are very profitable in two ways.
In the south of Europe, the handsome, ever green holm oak grows wild; its glossy leaves and compact form remind us of our holly trees. It
is one of the most valuable ornamental oaks, but as a fruit tree, it has unusual value. Its acorns are sweet and rich, and the crop is heavy. Hogs are fattened upon them. In earlier days they were used as human food, and even now gipsies gather them to eat. Its acorn cups, bark, and the galls it bears are of the very best quality. They are used in the most particular jobs of dyeing and tanning.
Under ground, the holm oak bears a strange fruit—a fungus called " truffle " develops on the roots. These truffles are somewhat like mush rooms in their growth. They are far more deli cious to eat, and expensive to buy than ordinary mushrooms. The best of them are found in France, and French people are especially fond of them.
Trees that grow on chalky lands are more likely to produce truffles. At a dozen years old, they begin to yield, and truffles may be found upon their roots for about twenty-five years.
Not every holm oak has truffles on its roots. The finding of these delicacies is a very interesting and exciting game, and a great deal of a lottery. There is but one way to find them, and that is by the sense of smell. The truffle has a rich, strong odour. Dogs and pigs are the only animals that are able to find it. The truffle-hunter is usually an old woman, who goes with a trained pig or a trained dog into the oak forest. She has a basket, and a spading fork, and she keeps a close eye on her four-footed partner. If the pig, in rooting about under an oak, suddenly becomes excited, and begins to root furiously, she drives him away, and digs out the precious ball of fungus he has scented. It is irregular in form, and looks some what like a potato. Meanwhile the pig locates another, and is again disappointed. The truffle dog is treated in the same manner. Unless put into a pen, or chained at night, these truffle hunters are likely to take to the woods and feast when no one is by to interfere with their pleasure.
Truffles are shipped in cans to the United States, but we have not yet discovered them grow ing on the roots of our oak trees. Probably we have not yet looked for them with sufficient care and patience.