Common 



baft 



LETTER XXXV. 



To the same. 



SELBORNE, A/ay 2oth, 1777. 



EAR SIR, Lands that are subject to frequent 

 inundations are always poor; and probably 

 the reason may be because the worms are 

 drowned. The most insignificant insects and 

 reptiles are of much more consequence, and 

 have much more influence in the economy 

 of Nature, than the incurious are aware of; 

 and are mighty in their effect, from their minuteness, which 

 renders them less an object of attention : and from their 

 numbers and fecundity. Earth-worms, though in appearance 

 a small and despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, 

 would make a lamentable chasm. For to say nothing of half 

 the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely 

 supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters 

 of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, 

 by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering 

 it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws 

 and stalks of leaves and twigs into it; and, most of all, by 

 throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called 

 worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure 

 for grain and grass. Worms probably provide new soil for 



