G. H. Kinahan — On the Oroiuth of Soil. 265 



layer of peaty soil will grow on the marl or gravel. It is not 

 uncommon in these moors, if a section is opened through them, to 

 see one, two, or even three of these layers of foreign matter, pointing 

 out the number of times the moor was " brought in," and afterwards 

 allowed to run wild. 



Any one acqu.ainted with bogs well knows that earthworms cannot 

 live in them. They will be found in reclaimed moors in the made 

 soil, both while they are in tillage and grass land, but once the 

 original boggy nature again predominates they disappear, so that 

 they cannot assist in making the upper stratum of soil above the 

 gravel ; moreover, if this upper stratum is examined, it will be 

 found to be of the same plaity or rudely laminated structure, similar 

 to that of all bogs that grow from the successive layers of decayed 

 vegetable matter. 



Those conversant with highly cultivated rich grass land, can 

 scarcely have failed to remark the enormous worm-work that yearly 

 goes on, but this is not the case in all lands, for in many (not all) 

 over chalk and limestone there is little or no worm-work, and also 

 in poor sandy soils or in ' slob-land ' newly reclaimed from the sea. 

 On many chalk and limestone lands as mentioned in " Suggestions 

 on denudation," " stones grow," but in poor sandy soils or in slob- 

 land, although it may be the work of time, yet eventually there will 

 be a surface soil formed by the decay of the vegetable matter, and 

 all the stone will be covered up by the growth of the soil. In such 

 soils at the beginning of the growth of the vegetable clothing, earth 

 worms will be rare ; in fact they cannot live without organic food, 

 therefore until the vegetable life began they could not exist. As the 

 vegetable soil increases, so will the earthworms, showing that the 

 two agents work together, also that the growth of the vegetable soil 

 is due, not only to its decay, but also to the worm- work ; when 

 the soil becomes rich, the latter agents do the major part of their 

 work, but while it was poor, they could do little or none, owing to 

 the paucity of their number, so that to vegetable decay was due the 

 growth of the first mould. 



Lands with a permanent turf or sod, that has remained untilled for 

 ages, may be used either as pasture or the grass may be cut to dry 

 into hay. If the surface soil were due only to the earthworms, 

 apparently, in a field all of which has the same fertility, subsoil, etc., 

 if a part is used as permanent pasture, while from the rest hay is always 

 cut, the condition of the whole ought to be similar, and there would 

 be a gradual increase of the mould of the same. This, however, is well 

 known to the farmer not to be the case, for the suiface will increase 

 on the pasture-land, but not on the permanent meadow, except the 

 latter is cut early enough to allow of a second growth or " after 

 grass," which is left to rot on the ground. To counteract the 

 injurious effect of removing all the vegetation, which natiu:ally 

 should decay on it, from the meadow-land, the land has to be top- 

 dressed with foreign substances ; moreover, all farmers state that 

 mowing machines are harder on meadow-land than hand mowing, 

 because the latter do not or cannot cut as close as the former, and 



