CHAPTER VII 



FIELD-LABORERS— Continued 



"The plow is one of the most ancient and most valu- 

 able of man's inventions; but long before he existed the 

 land v^^as, in fact, regularly plov^ed, and still continues to 

 be thus plowed, by earthworms." 



We have learned much about the earthworm of late 

 years, thanks to Mr. Darwin; but long before Vegetable 

 Mould and Earthworms was written — more than a hun- 

 dred years ago, in fact — Gilbert White, the naturalist, of 

 Selborne, had a very good idea of the worm's importance 

 as one of nature's field -laborers. "A good monography 

 of worms," he wrote, "would afford much entertainment 

 and information at the same time, and would open a large 

 and new field in natural history." "Vegetation would 

 proceed but lamely without it, so great are its services in 

 boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering 

 it pervious to rains and the fibers 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, 

 which is a fine manure for grain and grass." 



Gardeners and farmers hated the worm in his day, as 

 the former at least do still; but he remarks that they 

 would find "the earth without worms would soon become 

 cold, hard-bound, and void of fermentation, and conse- 

 quently sterile." 



The earthworm is an animal possessed apparently of 



55 



