Field-Labourers 8 1 



rice-fields of Bengal, which are very soon studded with 

 worm-heaps after they have been flooded, but in a 

 garden we are inclined to think it out of place. And 

 it is true that, in the Botanic Gardens of Calcutta, the 

 lawns are covered in a single night or two, if they are 

 left unrolled, with tower-like castings, which weigh 

 some ounce and a quarter each, and are anything but 

 sightly. 



Sometimes, too, the earthworm may disturb seed- 

 lings by burrowing, but it does not eat them. Neither 

 does it touch living roots, as it has been suspected of 

 doing, at least when these are growing in the open 

 ground ; though what it may do when confined in a 

 pot, and pressed by hunger, is perhaps another matter. 



In spite of some drawbacks, however, it would be 

 not merely hard but absolutely impossible for man to 

 contrive any substitute for these natural ploughmen if 

 he could succeed in banishing them. 



But people are never all satisfied ; and among the 

 malcontents are some who find fault with the worm, 

 not for doing too much, but for doing too little ! It 

 works, say they, only for a few months of the year, 

 and therefore does not deserve so much credit and 

 gratitude after all. 



The poor worm cannot work in dry soil. Indeed, 

 moisture seems to be the one thing essential to it ; for 

 though it can stand much bodily ill-usage, it is actually 

 killed by exposure to the dry air of a room for even a 

 single night. In hot countries, such as Bengal, there- 

 fore, it can only work during the cool season, about; 

 two months, after the rains ; and even in the moist 

 climate of England it cannot work near the surface 

 during the dry weather of summer, any more than 



6 



