TECHNICAL DISCUSSION 155 



Reprinted from SOIL Scixncx 

 Vol. 58, No. 5, November, 1944 



The Chemical Composition of Earthworm Casts 1 



H. A. Lunt and H. G. M. Jacobson 2 



Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station 

 Received for publication July 22, 1944 



MANY years ago Gilbert White, 3 and later, Darwin (2) stressed 

 the value of earthworms to agriculture, and agronomists and 

 foresters as well as many practical farmers and gardeners have 

 recognized the improvement in the physical condition of the soil 

 brought about by these inhabitants. Little has been done, how- 

 ever, to exploit the idea or to "put the worms to work" on any 

 extensive scale until recently. A number of farmers have adopted 

 what is called "earthworm tillage" or "biodynamic farming," 

 the terms not being exactly synonymous but referring to prac- 

 tices which have some features in common. The reported suc- 

 cesses of these farming methods have prompted the study of the 

 properties of worm casts in comparison with the soil mass as a 

 whole. No effort was made to obtain quantitative measurements 

 of the amount of cast material thrown up in a year, although a 

 rough estimate was made of the quantity present on the field at 

 the time of sampling. 



1 Contribution from the department of soils, Connecticut Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, New Haven* Connecticut. 



2 Associate in forest soils and associate agronomist, respectively. 



3 Russell (8) quotes the folowing from Gilbert White, published in 

 1777: "Worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would 

 proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the 

 soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibers of plants, by drawing 

 straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, by throwing 

 up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being 

 their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and grass ... the earth with- 

 out worms would soon become cold, hard-bound, and void of fermentation, 

 and consequently sterile," 



