OCTOBER 



Country Harvests Purple Patches A Better Eden A Cider 

 Orchard The End of the Farm Where &quot;Ravens ILeign 



I. 



the village station, which the train reached at 

 tan hour that had little relation to the time-table, 

 !a porter, who was a born villager, cheered my 

 drooping spirits by assuring me that the soft rain, which 

 was falling, would inevitably produce a plentiful crop of 

 mushrooms. The subject further inclined him to 

 savoury reminiscences. One year in his youth his cottage 

 garden suddenly produced a plentiful crop of morels ; 

 and his mother at once made a beef-steak and kidney pie, 

 which she flavoured with the morels. Never was any 

 dish quite so delicious. The morel remained as a type of 

 ambrosia in the minds of all who ate it. Its form is as 

 clear in the memory as its savour : the quaint cells on its 

 peaked hat, the curious spongy material, the general look 

 of rarity and distinction; but they are small details 

 beside the ineffable flavour. 



The country porter s prophecy, stimulated by this 

 dulcet memory, was justified fully and immediately. The 

 very next day the meadows were dotted with mushrooms. 

 One well-cut and much used tennis lawn was studded 

 with &quot; buttons,&quot; and horse mushrooms began to swell 

 (like the Harrow cricket ball at this date) under the trees. 

 The porter s reminiscences included a reference to the 

 taste of certain &quot; engineers from Leicester &quot; who had a 

 peculiar fondness for the horse mushroom, which 



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