1882.] 
AMERICAN AGEIOULTUMST. 
Earth Worms—On the Farm, in the Gar¬ 
den, and Elsewhere. 
As a general thing, we do not take much 
notice of Earth Worms. The farmer may 
occasionally think that their abundance indi¬ 
cates rich land, but except when about to 
take a day of recreation at fishing, he gives 
but little attention to these creatures. To the 
gardener they are sometimes an annoyance, 
when they disfigure his nicely rolled gravel- 
walk, deposit their casts among the velvety 
grass of his lawn, make holes in his borders, 
or, worse than all, establish their own sys¬ 
tems of drainage in the earth of his pots. 
But none of us have looked upon worms as of 
any great consequence, much less have they 
been regarded by the farmer and gardener as 
essential to their daily work, and capable of 
not only modifying the condition of the soil, 
but even an agent in bringing a large share 
of the earth’s surface to its present configura¬ 
tion. “Why have we not before seen and 
known the importance of worms ” ? it will be 
asked. Merely because no Darwin has before 
shown us how to use our eyes. Many have 
criticised or ridiculed Darwin’s views—or 
rather what they supposed, or were told to be 
his views, as to the teachings of certain facts. 
The facts themselves, the clearness and fair¬ 
ness with which he states his observations, 
are not to be criticised. This wonderful nat¬ 
uralist takes up the commonest things, and 
when we look at them by the aid of his eyes, 
we wonder why no one else saw them before. 
He shows us the end of a bean vine, or the 
tendril of a grape vine, and we see the most 
remarkable movements which these plants 
have been making, unobserved, for centuries. 
So when he calls our attention to the worms, 
which bring up their pellets of earth from 
below, we at once see that this work cannot 
have gone on, for centuries upon centuries, 
without producing results, and this creature 
from being “nothing but a worm,” becomes 
at once an important farm and garden 
laborer. Mr. Darwin’s observations upon 
worms* are of especial interest to cultivators, 
but his work will be found attractive to all 
who care to look into the operations of nature. 
Not the least interesting chapters are those 
devoted to the structure and habits of worms; 
these give experiments which some may like 
to repeat. They show that worms are spar¬ 
ingly supplied with senses. They have no 
eyes or ears, and can not smell, but their 
sense of feeling is wonderfully acute. Being 
without legs, they move by means of small 
bristles upon a portion of the many rings of 
the body. Though of such simple organization 
worms have a share of intelligence, as shown 
by their seizing a leaf or piece of paper by 
that portion which will best allow it to be 
dragged into the hole. The mouth is a mere 
slit, with a projecting lip, by which it takes 
hold of objects ; there is a long gullet, a small 
crop, immediately below which is a strong 
gizzard ; within this are often found stones, 
which are thought to aid in grinding food, as 
do those in the gizzards of fowls. Worms 
live upon a great variety of food,' vegetable 
and animal, including dead worms, and they 
consume many dead leaves; they besides 
swallow earth for the sake of the nutriment 
*The formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action 
of Worms, with Observations on their Habits. By Charles 
Darwin, LL.D., F.R.S. 
59 
| it contains. The burrows run to a depth of 
1 three to eight feet, though the worms remain 
; near the surface, except in a spell of dry, or 
j in very cold weather. They make their bur¬ 
rows in part by pushing the earth aside, and 
partly by swallowing it. The swallowed 
earth, more or less changed and mixed with 
organic matter and the fluids of the intes¬ 
tines, is ejected at the mouth of the burrow, 
in piled up pellets, known as casts ; to do this, 
they come up tail foremost. The amount of 
earth brought up from a single burrow after 
drying, weighs from less than an ounce to 
over four ounces. A square yard of earth 
was nieasured, the castings from this, when 
collected and dried, weighed three and a half 
pounds—equal to seven and a half (7.56) tons 
per acre per annum ! In other cases 15 to 18 
tons of earth per acre have been estimated, 
and this, if scattered equally over an acre— 
as it may be by rains and winds, would form 
a uniform coating of a little over two (2.2) 
inches in the course of 10 years. The ex¬ 
amples cited of this increase of soil are 
numerous and full of interest, showing how 
the depth of vegetable mould is increased ; 
fields where the stones almost touched one 
another, became so covered with soil in 30 
years, that no stones were visible; large 
stones, partly covered, and even ruins of 
ancient buildings (Roman villas), buried to 
the depth of several feet and entirely lost 
sight of by the agency of worms during the 
present era. As to the service to the farmer 
and gardener, Darwin says :— 
•‘Worms prepare the ground in an excellent 
manner for the growth of fibrous-rooted plants 
and for seedlings of all kinds. They periodi¬ 
cally expose the mould to the air, and sift it so 
that no stones larger than the particles which 
they can swallow are left in it. They mingle the 
whole intimately together, like a gardener who 
prepares fine soil for his choicest plants. In this 
state it is well fitted to retain moisture and to ab¬ 
sorb all soluble substances, as well as for the pro¬ 
cess of nitrification. The bones of dead animals, 
the harder parts of insects, the shells of laud mol¬ 
luscs, leaves, twigs, etc., are before long all buried 
beneath the numerous eastings of worms, and are 
thus brought in a more or less decayed state within 
reach of the roots of plants. Worms likewise drag 
an infinite number of dead leaves and other parts 
of plants into their burrows, partly for the sake of 
plugging them up and partly as food.” 
We would gladly, did space permit, quote 
more from this intensely interesting work, 
which concludes as follows : 
“ When we behold a wide, turf-covered expanse, 
we should remember that its smoothness, on which 
so much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all 
the inequalities having been slowly levelled by 
worms. It is a marvellous reflection that the whole 
of the superficial mould over any such expanse has 
passed, and will again pass, every few years, through 
the bodies of worms. The plow is one of the most 
ancient and most valuable of man’s inventions ; 
but long before he existed the land was in fact 
regularly plowed, and still continues to be thus 
plowed by earth worms. It may be doubted 
whether there are many other animals which have 
played so important a part in the history of the 
world as have these lowly organized creatures. 
Some other animals, however, still more lowly or¬ 
ganized, namely corals, have done far more con¬ 
spicuous work in having constructed innumerable 
reefs and islands iu the great oceans; but these 
are almost confined to the tropical zones.” 
This work should be read by every young 
naturalist, if only for the examples its affords 
of careful, patient-observation. It can es¬ 
pecially be commended to all who five in the 
country, as showing them how every-day 
facts, apparently of little importance in them¬ 
selves, if carefully noted and recorded, may 
lead as in this case to most interesting results. 
Butter Pails. 
“Old Poultry” writes from Kalamazoo, 
Mich. : “We live near town, and make a 
business of supplying customers with fresh 
butter and eggs twice a week. For carrying- 
several packages of butter, we have butter 
pails. They are made of the heaviest tin, 
divided across into three equal parts, with 
two partitions of tin, each having a small 
hole or ring in the center, for convenience in 
handling ; and also, to prevent the butter 
plates from sliding against the edges of the 
pail, make each partition bend toward the 
center, something of the shape of a plate. 
There is an ordinary cover to the pail. We 
have the pails made to the size of ordinary 
14-quart milking pails, because that size will 
slide under a buggy-seat. Any good tinner 
can make such a pail, but be sure that the 
partitions and cover fit tightly, so there will 
be no noise when riding empty. The bottom 
should be made a trifle larger round than an 
ordinary-shaped pail. They will cost about 
half a dollar more than the best 14-quart 
pails.”—[The improved pail for marketing 
butter, with its various parts, is shown in 
the engraving herewith given. —Eds.] 
A Spring Latch. 
Mr. Geo. O. Cook, Polk Co., Minn., de¬ 
scribes a Spring Latch for a barn door or 
gate as follows : For a stable door the latch 
should be 18 inches long, "/ 2 inch thick, and 
3 inches broad at the widest part. The spring 
is made by the long narrow end, held in 
place by screws or pins. A peg in the broad 
part passes through a slot in the door, and 
serves to lift the latch on the inside. A 
handle may be placed upon the outside. 
'f'Sse Ice ISarvesl.—There is one impor¬ 
tant farm crop that must be harvested in 
winter. Not many years ago ice upon the 
farm, to be used in the household economy, 
the dairy, etc., was considered more as a 
luxury than otherwise. The views as to the 
