Mushroom Collectors Prepare for Season

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7200, 24 April 1930, Page 8

Mushroom Collectors Prepare for Season

C-REEN FIELDS SPOTTED WHITE. That much sought after and savoury delicacy of early winter, the mushroom, is beginning to dot the green pastures with its umbrella-shaped dome. Peoplo who for the rest of the year have no hankering after tho life truly rural, will shortly be found in paddocks and fields in.the early morning when tho dew is sparkling under the first rays of the sun. Although the Jaw will tell you that the mushroom which forces its head through the luscious grass on Jones’ land is as much that person’s property as his land, ass, or swine, tho passer-by never hesitates to climb through the fence and pick the fungus, considering it as common property. The wholesale eradication of the morning growth of mushrooms by unauthorised persons has neon simplified by the prevalence of motor-cars; people of an earlier day gladly suffered damp feet and trudged many'- miles to commit tho crime of trespass in order to experience the joy of filling tho deep hand basket, but now tho mushroomgatherer is far out on the country roads searching Smith’s farm before Jones is aware of his loss. Last mushroom season, a certain farmer who saw his crop swept into passing cars, objected on the ground that he grew them for selling purposes and that they' were as much his property as his oats, hens and swedes.

The farmers’ protest, to all intents and purposes, is wafted to tho winds. Mushroomers naturally laugh and will this year again cross tho paddocks. Some mushrooms of a substantial size are now being displayed in fruiterers' windows in Palmerston North. One vendor said yesterday that his supply had been obtained locally and that earlier in the week he had been forced to refuse lots. However, the ’’main crop” will not appear until more rain has fallen.