34 NATURE IN ENGLAND. 



when contrasted with oar own. This little yet mighty 

 engine is much less instrumental in leavening and 

 leveling the soil in New England than in Old. The 

 greater humidity of the mother-country, the deep 

 clayey soil, its fattening for ages by human occu- 

 pancy, the abundance of food, the milder climate, etc., 

 are all favorable to the life and activity of the earth- 

 worm. Indeed, according to Darwin, the gardener 

 that has made England a garden is none other than 

 this little obscure creature. It plows, drains, airs, 

 pulverizes, fertilizes, and levels. It cannot transport 

 rocks and stone, bat it can bury them ; it cannot re- 

 move the ancient walls and pavements, but it can 

 undermine them and deposit its rich castings above 

 them. On each acre of land, he says, "in many 

 parts of England, a weight of more than ten tons of 

 dry earth annually passes through their bodies and 

 is brought to the surface." w When we behold a 

 wide, turf-covered expanse," he further observes, " we 

 should remember that its smoothness, on which so 

 much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all the 

 inequalities having been slowly leveled by worms,** 



The small part which worms play in this direction 

 in our landscape is, I am convinced, more than neu- 

 tralized by our violent or disrupting climate; but 

 England looks like the product of some such gentle, 

 tireless, and beneficent agent. I have referred to 

 that effect in the face of the landscape as if the soil 

 had snowed down ; it seems the snow came from the 

 other direction, namely, from below, but was depos 

 ited with equal gentleness and uniformity. 



