COUNTRY HARVESTS 233 



&quot; couldn t be too big for em &quot; ; but that was a taste 

 that he, with his dainty memory of the fairy-like morels, 

 could not understand, and could hardly forgive. The 

 engineers from Leicester had clearly lost caste in his 

 opinion. 



I once heard a countrywoman, very learned in country 

 lore, confess with a sort of awe, or was it boast ? that 

 she herself was a Boletus eater. She sought the ugly 

 things in Devon woods and had them cooked ; but was 

 forced to eat alone ; no one else had the courage in spite 

 of the seductive odour. So there are fairy-ring eaters 

 and puff-ball eaters and beef-steak mushroom eaters who 

 wonder at the abstinence of an unbelieving world. In 

 almost every country place within Britain the mushroom 

 harvest is the most highly appreciated ; but the zeal is 

 narrow. Nothing is picked but the field agaric. Even 

 the morel is passed by doubtless because it is rare and 

 curiously fickle in its appearance. It will suddenly sprout 

 from a gravel path or the shade of a gooseberry bush or in 

 a damp hollow by the wood ; but be seen no more for 

 years. The field agaric is much more regular. I know a 

 cricket-ground where it appears about this date every 

 year ; and one may return to a place after the absence of 

 a generation and find these mushrooms growing exactly 

 where they grew in our youth. They even taste as good 

 or nearly as good. 



This sudden output of mushrooms completes the sum 

 of country harvests and nearly all of them, in this annus 

 mirabiliS) are of exceptional worth. So many nuts 

 much the most valuable crop to animals other than man 

 were never seen, and a number of country hedges have 

 been pulled to pieces by eager youths. The rooks, 

 tempted by the multitude of the fruit, have begun before 

 the due date to fall upon the walnut trees and in some 



