i88sj 
Vegetable Soil . 
337 
Worms and Tillage Land . 
In the loose tillage land the worms appear to be able to 
run through it without having to throw up casts. In 
potato tillage you plant in February, March, or April, and 
afterwards you dig the furrows and earth, while you dig out 
about October. From the time you plant until you dig out 
you rarely see a worm cast on the surface, yet when you are 
digging out, the worms will be most numerous. In turnip 
and such like green crops, if the crops are allowed to lie 
long in the land, you will find some worm casts between 
November and February, according to the time the land is 
broken up, but not many if we are to judge from the few to 
be seen last winter (1881 — 1882). Yet there were plenty 
of them in the ground, as could be proved by digging it up, 
or by the innumerable surface tracks after rain. Here it 
may be mentioned that it would seem as if it is only from 
necessity they burrow, because after a turnip or mangel crop 
is pulled, numbers of the worms will be found under the 
leaves or any other kind of vegetable matter that has been 
left on the surface. Beans are sown in the early winter and 
pulled in the early autumn ; usually “ bean stubble” is very 
dirty, and when broken up is found to be full of worms, yet 
worm casts in bean land are few. Wheat, barley, and oats 
land rarely have worm casts on them, except when clover or 
hay seed have also been sown to lay it down. In March and 
April, 1882, I carefully examined the land on the Wicklow, 
Wexford, and Carlow hills (schist rocks), laid down the 
previous year, and rarely could I find a worm casting, the 
land not having consolidated and the worms being easily able 
to pass through the earth without throwing up surface 
mounds. On some of the land laid down two seasons there 
were a few but not many; the conspicuous areas for worm 
castings being the old consolidated grass field on which 
moss had not grown. 
I had some land in which celery grew, which was dug up 
early in January and let lie till April ; not a worm cast 
was to be seen on it, but when dug up the second time, the 
old manure, a spit under the surface, was full of worms. 
In my present garden at Ovoca, an open one, which has a 
hedge and trees round three-fourths of it, I usually have two 
crops of early cabbage — one put down in October and the 
other as early as possible in February or March. The 
cutting of the first crop, if the weather is favourable, will be 
in April and May, while all will be cleared out in June or 
