Mushrooms

Mushrooms

[photo of SMI giant mushrooms in Rawlings diary]

In the News~

March 9, 1901 [SBMP]: “Mammoth mushrooms. A photograph of mushrooms grown on San Miguel Island and now posted in the Press office window shows that San Miguel holds the medal. One of them measures 9-1/2 inches across, and the owner of the photograph asserts that he could have gathered bushels of them six inches in diameter. The largest one weighed three pounds and was a good as it was large.”

March 9, 1901 [LAT/SB]: “On a recent trip from San Miguel Island, the schooner Restless, Captain Burtis, brought a sample of a huge mushroom of the edible variety grown on the island. It measured nine and one-half inches in diameter.”

May 4, 1902 [NSJ]: “Cottagers on Catalina… On Catalina Island there were thousands of delicious mushrooms! The cottagers had them as big as your two hands—lots of them, on steak, in stews, smothered in butter. But the hotel dwellers and restaurant eaters knew noting of them…”

March 26, 1904 [PRP]: “Big mushrooms — Captain William G. Waters returned Monday from San Miguel Island, where he has been for the past month looking after his stock there. He reports heavy rainfalls and says he has sufficient feed to carry him through the summer. He brought back a sack of mushrooms which were remarkable for size, some of them measuring 10 inches across the top.”

November 7, 1916 [SCICo]: “…Is there such a thing as a First Aid book that is applicable to our conditions here? The inquiry is promptly by the fact that we nearly lost a cook Saturday at the Main Ranch from eating toadstools. We pulled him through all right, but he was a mighty sick man for awhile…”