THE FUNGUS INDUSTRY.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 21, 26 August 1882, Page 2

THE FUNGUS INDUSTRY.

From very small beginnings the fungus •xports are now assuming very respectable proportions. It is scarcely two yeenrs •igo when the first intimation was given by a storekeeper in Palmerston that he was a buyer of fungus, and when the quidnunces, with their usual wisdom, wanted to know what fungus was for, and what possible profit could be derived rom so poor an industry as fungusollccting. However, when it became Vnown among the Maories that it was •aleable, they at once adopted an industry so amirably adapted to meet their views j m the subject of work, and men. women and children soon began to collect the ilitherto despised, fungus. At first they were of course indifferent and li>zy, having i i doubt that if they collected too much, llie market would be glutted, and the ' soose with the golden eggs would be

slain ; or that the fallen trees from w ich ; it was gathered, would fail io producing a second crop. However, when it was i found that the more they were able to collect, the greater was the dwnand, and with the greater demand made by new storekeepers offering to buy the higher the prices ranged, they discovered that they had then a means of gaining a good living while indulging in their nomadic habits to the full. They were also quick enough to discover that when the decaying trees were denuded of their existing crop, that a new one immediately began to appear. Their white brethren are now following their example, and through their more persistent and better-directed efforts have become foimidable rivals in the field. We are informed that one lad netted £60 last j'ear entirely unaided. '! he process is so simple that no apprenticeship is needed. All that is required is a knife and a sack. The bush may be entered anywhere, and the harvest lies ready to hand, and with ordinary industry and luck a bag can be filled in half-a-day. The fungus is then spread and dried, after which it is ready fot the purchaser, who gives from 3d to 3|d per lb. It is not unlikely that bush land may be made profitable by felling the trees and allowing them to become fungus gardens, and as in ordinary wet bush land a ton of fungus would b" annually produced to the acre, at a value of at least £25 per ton, there can be no doubt but that this plan will, in many cases be adopted. The whole cost of collection, drying, and bagging, would be at the outside £5 per ton, leavine a margin of £20 profit, and the crop would be produced for, at the least, five years, while the land would be practically clearing itself. In the mean time cattle could be grazed on the land without the slightest damage to the fungus crop. The export of fungus from the Manawatu now averages 20 bales a week, equal to three tons, of the value of £75, the cost of producing which is very little, not exceeding £5 per ton. We are informed that the value of fungus at its ultimate market, in China, is about lOd per pound. We iiave shown sufficient to prove this to be a most remarkably profitable industry, and cne remunerative to every one connected with it. The Government have recognised its value, since the wharfage and railway charges are all double rate-, the wharfage on one bale of fungus being equal to three bales of wool, wool being charged at per bale and fungus by measurement. We have no doubt but that this export will steadily increase, and be another means of adding to the wealth of the already prosperous valley of tie Manawatu.