THE CHUB. 55 



the hole full and packed up a couple of feet or so higher 

 than the ground. The great secret of keeping plenty of 

 worms in this heap, when it once has been stocked, is to 

 keep it well damp, and always watered with some suitable 

 liquor. I have found that the worms have always been the 

 most plentiful and in the best condition, when the heap has 

 been the most damp and disagreeable to turn over. An old 

 friend of mine, who is one of the very best men on the 

 Trent, had some time ago a pigstye down the bottom of his 

 garden, and of course in close proximity to this pigstye there 

 was a manure heap. He stocked this heap with cockspurs 

 for his own use, and when he began to fatten his pig for the 

 larder, he used to boil up, and give it occasionally with its 

 other food, some tallow cake, or scratchings, and he used to 

 drain the liquor from it that it was boiled in (water at first, 

 of course), and pour it on the top of his manure heap. 

 After this had continued for some little time, he was very much 

 pleased and surprised to find that the worms in that heap 

 had very much improved both as regards size and quantity. 



Now the angler would find that it would pay him if he 

 was, say, two or three times during the season, to boil two 

 or three handsful of this tallow cake in a saucepan of water, 

 and to pour it over his heap. Anyhow, he should occasionally 

 water it, if only with the liquor from the dinner-pot that the 

 cabbage and bacon had been boiled in. By attending to his 

 heap, and occasionally putting some fresh worms in, he 

 would always have a plentiful supply close at home. About 

 twenty-four hours before he wants to use these worms, he 

 should with an old garden-fork, or something handy, turn over 

 the heap a bit, and pick out as many as he thinks he shall 

 want, and put them on the top of some clean damp moss 

 that he has ready for them in an old pipkin or gallipot, or 

 even a big old flower-pot with a cork stuck tightly in the hole 

 at the bottom, and then cover it over with a bit of an old sack, 

 to prevent the worms from crawling up the sides, over the 

 rim, and escaping. At the end of the twenty-four hours 

 they will be in condition for use. 



A correspondent, signing himself " Watchett," in a recent 

 number of the Fishing Gazette, gives a plan for keeping and 



