HUMBLE HELPERS 109 



particles of earth are ground up into a fine, rich soil. 

 This is mixed with certain salts of lime which are fur- 

 nished from the worm's digestive organs. Then it is 

 all cast out by the worm upon the surface of the ground 

 above its burrow. You must have seen those little 

 lumps of fine soil over the lawn and in your garden. 



When you were helping weed the garden, did 

 you ever see ends of grass and pieces of leaves half 

 pushed into little holes? The earthworm gathered 

 those the night before and pulled them into the 

 mouth of its burrow to shut it up safely. It is 

 going to eat some of the bits of leaves and will line 

 the upper part of the burrow with the rest, if, indeed, 

 you do not pull them all up to make your garden 

 look tidier, as some people do. It is much better to 

 leave them there for little Mr. Plowman to use to 

 fertilize your garden. 



As you shall learn in another lesson it is grass and 

 leaves and other vegetation accumulating year after 

 year that makes the soil in your gardens so different 

 from that in a sand pit or a gravel bank. Although 

 each worm pulls underground such a very little bit 

 of grass and leaves each night, yet, as many, many 

 thousands of worms work continually night after 

 night and year after year, you can imagine how much 

 good they do. Busy little plowmen they are, making 

 the finest and richest of soil right there near the sur- 

 face where you need it most. 



The farmer plows and harrows and cultivates the 

 soil on his farm and adds, to enrich it, those same salts 

 of lime which the earthworm adds. With great labor 

 the farmer can take away the larger stones and even 



