ANNELIDA TERRICOLA. 



White, in his Natural History of Selborne, speaking of the 

 effects of earth-worms on the soil in promoting vegetation, 

 says, " 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 ren- 

 ders 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 entirely supported by 

 them, worms seem to be equal promoters of vegetation, which 

 would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforat- 

 ing, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to the 

 rain 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 hills and slopes, 

 where the rain washes the earth away, and they affect slopes 

 probably to avoid being flooded. Gardeners and farmers ex- 

 press their detestation of worms ; the former because they 

 render their walks unsightly, and make them much work, and 

 the latter because, as they think, worms eat their green corn. 

 But they would find that the earth without worms would 

 soon become cold, hard-bound, and void of fermentation, and 

 consequently sterile; and besides, in favor of worms it should 

 be hinted, that green corn, plants, and flowers are not so 

 much injured by them as by many species of Coleoptera (sca- 

 rabs) and Tipulce (long-legs) in their larvae or grub state, and 

 by unnoticed myriads of small shelless snails called slugs, 

 which silently and imperceptibly make amazing havoc in the 

 field and garden. Worms work most in the spring, and are 

 out every mild night in the winter. They are very pro- 

 lific. 



Worms are readily destroyed by the application of com- 

 mon salt, sown broadcast, at the rate of five or six bushels 

 per acre; or on grass plats, by the application of lime-water, 

 or rather milk of lime, which is readily made by stirring for 

 ten minutes a pound of hot lirne in four or five pailfuls of 

 water. But, for the reasons already given, they should not 

 be destroyed. 



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