104 HARNESSING THE EARTHWORM 



results. Therefore we advise the beginner in earthworm culture 

 to make a sizeable start. It requires about as much time to look 

 after a single culture box or bed as it does to take care of a 

 number of box.es. Once the setup is made, the main attention 

 for sixty to ninety days will be to sprinkle the cultures with 

 water about once a week, or often enough to keep them moist 

 while the worms are developing. 



In giving instructions for making a beginning and proceed- 

 ing with perfect confidence in success, we shall not discuss make- 

 shift methods. More labor, the main consideration, is involved 

 in following makeshift methods than will be found necessary 

 in doing the thing right. Let us, therefore, proceed on the prin- 

 ciple that "anything worth doing is worth doing well." We 

 wish to emphasize that the methods herein described are not 

 arbitrary, except for certain basic principles. In our research 

 and experimentation over a period of a good many years, we 

 have invented or evolved methods, culture beds, and so on, 

 which have proved successful in our own work, as well as in the 

 work of many others who have taken up earthworm culture and 

 followed the methods we have advised. We further counsel 

 every earthworm culturist to experiment constantly and work out 

 methods of his own. In this way comes progress. 



INTENSIVE EARTHWORM CULTURE 

 IN BOXES 



Vegetable Lug Boxes 



The simplest and most practical method for beginning earth- 

 worm culture is propagation in boxes. Many years' experience 

 in the intensive breeding of earthworms for egg-capsules produc- 

 tion has demonstrated that a box of the approximate dimensions 

 of 14 inches wide, 18 inches long, and 6 inches deep is the most 

 favorable size both for convenient and easy handling as well as 

 maximum capsule production in order to develop quickly and 



