1937.
Far earlier than I thought.
A very long time ago, my mentor Phil Sturman sent a snail mail to Tolkien concerning his theory that Bilbo - when, at the end of his long life and knowing that his work was done - the venerable hobbit set sail for the West and ended up in Brandywine, Pennsylvania where they used to grow almost all of America’s canned mushrooms.
Phil argued that - for hobbits - sharing food with one’s fellows was the prime directive... but mushrooms were a more attractive comestible than all other "eats" put together. And so, surely, mushrooms lay at the end of Bilbo’s rainbow.
Tolkien wrote back, thanking Phil for his speculation, but adding that he did not know how the great hobbit occupied himself in “the west."
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