12 HARNESSING THE EARTHWORM 



diversification of food plants and animals, the processing and 

 preservation of foods, the great research laboratories, experiment 

 stations and agricultural colleges all these things yet remain 

 mere superficial adjuncts to facilitate nature's own methods. 

 Like the utilization of water power, modern agriculture is simply 

 an exploitation of the natural resources and forces of nature, 

 through the adaptation and ingenuity of man. The dam is not 

 the river, the ship is not the ocean, the sail is not the wind. And 

 in agriculture, nature yet remains "Mother Nature" and the 

 human race is still a breast-fed infant, drawing its sustenance and 

 nutrition from the good earth through processes of fertility, 

 fertilization, and growth which have not been improved upon. 



Studying the progressive destruction of the soil on this con- 

 tinent by mechanized methods, agricultural soil-robbers, and 

 erosion, we realize the futility of chemical fertilization and turn 

 to a study of nature's perfect method. We are struck by the 

 outstanding contrast between the two methods : ( 1 ) Through 

 chemical fertilization and mechanization, with its progressive and 

 inevitable depletion of the natural fertility of the soil, man seeks 

 to feed the plant to meet the temporary and immediate call for 

 more and quick profits; (2) nature, through her method, seeks to 

 build soil in a continuous cycle which can meet with abundance 

 all present and temporary needs for food production, but at the 

 same time provide with growing fertility a soil which will 

 support in abundance the countless unborn generations of the 

 future. 



In a study of the soil-building methods of nature, we have 

 found a force at work in the earth the earthworm which 

 appears to have been evolved for the specific job of rebuilding 

 foe soil from the biological end-products of plant and animal life. 

 We have found this force at work throughout the earth from 

 the far north to the far south, from east to west, from sea-level 

 to the high plateaus and high into the mountains quietly, 

 swiftly, efficiently, like a good undertaker, restoring to the soil in 



