Conclusion Summary 



"Animal life in all its forms, from microbe to man, is the 

 great transformer of vegetation into perfect earthworm food, the 

 animal life itself, in the end, becoming food for the earthworm. 

 In the process of transformation, a small percentage becomes ani- 

 mal tissue, but most of it becomes humus-building food for 

 worms. In the feeding of domestic animals, such as cattle, sheep 

 and hogs, out of each 100 pounds of grain fed, on the average, 

 89 l /2 pounds becomes excrement, waste and gases, and 10% 

 pounds is represented by increase in animal weight. 



"In a never-ending cycle untold millions of tons of the 

 products of forest and farm, orchard and garden, are harvested, 

 to be transformed into potential earthworm food after they have 

 nourished animal life and served man. All the biological end- 

 products of life kitchen and farm waste, dead vegetation, ma- 

 nures, dead animal residues constitute the abundant cheap source 

 of earthworm food, waiting to be utilized in a profitable manner 

 through the scientific, intensive culture of domesticated earth- 

 worms. 



"The unseen and microscopic life of the earth beneath the 

 soil is vastly greater than the animal life which we see above the 

 earth as birds, beasts, and men. In fertile farm land we may 

 find as high as 7,000 pounds of bacteria per acre in the super- 

 ficial layers of topsoil, eternally gorging on the dead and living 

 vegetable material, on each other and en dead animal residues 



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