66 HARNESSING THE EARTHWORM 



My Grandfather's Earthworm Farm 



The story of a self-contained farm of 160 acres, main- 

 tained in ever-increasing fertility over a period of more 

 than 60 years, through the utilization of earthworms. 

 A fact story related to the author by the late Dr. George 

 Sheffield Oliver. 



WHEN, as a small boy, I went to live with my grandfather, 

 George Sheffield, in northern Ohio, I found him living on a 

 model farm of 160 acres, which he had farmed continuously 

 for more than sixty years. He was a man who loved the soil 

 and took pride in every detail of his farm. I remember him as 

 a tall, striking figure, of the type of Edwin Markham. In 

 fact, in later years, when I came across a picture of the poet 

 Markham, I was struck by the close resemblance of the two 

 men their features were almost identical and they could have 

 easily been taken for twins. 



Some of my pleasantest memories from the period of 

 several years which I spent on this farm are the daily horse- 

 back rides I took with my grandfather. After all these years I 

 can still see him, at the age of seventy-five, riding with the ease 

 and grace of the practiced horseman, swinging into the saddle 

 with the facility of a man in his prime. At that age he still 

 took delight in riding the young three-year-olds. He lived to the 

 ripe old age of ninety- three. 



Originally, this farm-holding had been 1,800 acres, but it 

 had been sold off in forty-acre tracts to former tenants until 

 there remained only the farmstead of 160 acres. It had been 

 my grandfather's practice to select young single men as farm 

 help. As these men reached maturity and married and wanted 

 to establish homes of their own, my grandfather would set each 

 of them up on a tract of forty acres or more, assist them in get- 

 ting started, and accept a payment contract over a period of 

 forty years. Thus, his close neighbors were men who, like him- 



