70 HARNESSING THE EARTHWORM 



As previously mentioned, the pit was fifty by one hundred 

 feet, excavated to a depth of two feet, and it was especially 

 designed to provide a great breeding bed for earthworms. 

 Literally millions of earthworms inhabited the pit and compost 

 heap. Each morning the barn was cleaned, the droppings for 

 the previous twenty-four hours were transported to the heap by 

 the dump baskets on the overhead trolley, and evenly spread 

 over the surface. The building of the compost heap was an 

 invariable daily routine of the farm work. A flock of chickens 

 everlastingly scratched and worked in the barnyard, assisted by 

 the ducks, gleaning every bit of undigested grain that found its 

 way into the manure, and incidentally adding about twenty tons 

 of droppings per year to the material which eventually found 

 its way into the compost heap. The cattle and sheep grazed 

 around the four strawstacks and bedded under the shelter of the 

 stacks, adding their droppings to the surface and treading them 

 into the bedding material. From time to time the entire barn- 

 yard was raked and scraped, the combined manure and litter 

 being harrowed to the compost heap and distributed in an even 

 layer over the entire surface. As the compost reached a depth 

 of twelve or fourteen inches, several tons of the red clay from 

 the border of the ice pond would be hauled in and spread in an 

 even layer over the surface of the compost. Thus the variety 

 of animal manures from horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and fowl 

 alternated in the heap with layers of the fine-textured clay, rich 

 in mineral elements. Meantime, beneath the surface the earth- 

 worms multiplied in untold millions, gorging ceaselessly upon 

 the manures and decomposing vegetable matter, as well as the 

 mineral clay soil, and depositing their excreta in the form of 

 castings a completely broken down, deodorized soil, rich in all 

 the elements of plant life. From time to time as necessary 

 (the necessity being determined by careful inspection on the part 

 of my grandfather), the compost would be watered through the 

 flume leading from the creek, thus being provided with the 

 moisture needed to permit the earthworms to function to the 



