The Fungus Industry.

Fungus is still pickled In some of the bnsli districts, but the war at present raging in China'has had a disastrous effect on the fungus market. It is just about <0 years since ChewChong a Chinese storekeeper at Xew Plymouth, found out the value of fungus as a "marketable commodity, and offered to buy as much of it as the struggling settlers of that time were able to gather from the stumps in tlic btish clearings which settlement had inado, and was "making. What the kauri •rum industry was in Auckland, so the fungus industry was to Taranaki in those early days. Although Taranaki was the birthplace of the .fungus industry, it was not many years till the trade in fungus spread over all the bush districts in the Dominion. Not long after the Great War, when dried, it was worth Rd per lb. and was then quite a thriving industry. When Chew Chong first bought it he paid id per lb for it, but the price rose during the years to about 3d or 4d per lb, the Maoris being the chief gatherers. The demand for the fungus -was unlimited in China because of the use which was made of it for culinary purposes, especially in the making of vege! table soup. Just at the moment the sale of fungus is at the lowest ebb.
Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 169, 20 July 1939, Page 10