FEBRUARY, 1944 
Chesterfield Harden Huskes’ Woim Ranch 
) 
THE FISH-CULTURIST NEWS 
‘| Give a Man a Fish 

anges 
Front entrance to the Hughes Worm Ranch, which has made the owner so much money he 
| pays his inc a 
_Worm Profits 
Put Man in 
The Money — 
x 
t 
fa Sometimes the worm will turn 
in your favor. That is what hap- 
pened in the case of Chesterfield 
Hardin Hughes, of Savannah, 
Tenn.,- who makes so much 
raising worms for fishermen 
that he is said to pay his income 
tax in four figures. 
By FRED E. WANKAN 
_. Story Published in The Tennessee 
4 Conservationist | 
face 
\ 
Se eee 
XN HEN Chesterfield Hardin 
W ‘Hughes was studying the 
masters of music at the Cincin- 
nati Conservatory he 
A _ dreams of being a worm rancher. 
“While wrestling with Bach, Beetho- 
ven, Mozart, Liszt, and their like, 
his mind was in the sky and not 
_ down in the earth where the lowly 
worm dwells. His first thoughts 
. and dreams were of being a Pader- 
- wreski but after two years with 
the masters he forsook them to 
tickle the ivory for the leading 
Show boats of the day. It took a 
turn of events as well as a turn of 
the worm to give him visions of a 
profitable business in Red Wig- 
glers and Brown Anglers. 
From his earliest days, the 44- 
year-old Chesterfield enjoyed fish- 
> Say 




Hi 
brown anglers would lure a bass, 
bream, blue gill, cat, or even a 
trout to his hook. He fished for 
fun in those days, went to school 
because it was the custom, and 
_. played the piano for pleasure. 
hie Short Military Career 
_ Young Hughes graduated from 
the Hardin county high school at 
i Savannah, Tenn., in 1917, and was 
sent away to the University of 
i; Tennessee to prepare himself for 
_ @ military career since at that 
time, as now, we were fighting the 
- Germans. The flu and the Armis- 
tice cut short his prospects for a 
martial life. Young Hughes, like 
all the rest of us, believing the 
' world was safe, went back to do- 
ing what he pleased. Hughes said, 
“I wanted to be a pianist, so off 
| to the Cincinnati Conservatory I 
__ went and studied the masters for 
two years.” 
_ In discussing his eventful. ca- 
reer, he _ stated, “Popular music 
gave me my chance so I quit my 
ambitions for a classical profes- 
sion and took to the show boats. 
The James Adams was my first 
job. Here [I played at every city 
and town on the Chesapeake Bay 
and as far south as Virginia.” 
For 19 years the James Adams 
of the Chesapeake, the Cotton 
Blossom and Hollywood out of New 
Orleans, as well as many night 
clubs, according to Hughes boast- 
ed of the “Piano playing boy from 
Savannah on_ the Tennessee.” 
Many are the river towns on the 
Mississippi, the Ohio and his own 
Tennessee who listened to this man 
who was destined to have one of 



Ah 
t} 

had no. 
ing. He found that red worms and} 
tax in four figures. That mea ns somewhere between $10.01 and $9,999. 

| the most unusual ways of making | tion. “It seemed there was no end 
money of any man in America, 
No Time for Girls 
Hughes is‘a bachelor—not afraid 
of women—just never had time to 
get around to them, he explains. 
tiis vaudeville career was cut 
short by the death of a brother, 
Paul, at Savannah, Tenn., in the 
early part of 1939. ‘Nineteen 
years of it,” he explained, “I was 
in Pittsburgh at the time with a 
job that was paynig me more 
money than I had yet had with any 
show boat or night club.” 
After the burial of his brother, 
Hughes decided to stick around 
| Savannah for a while and help 
with the general mercantile store 
belonging to the Hughes family, in 
the sleepy town on the Tennessee. 
Things were happening to the Ten- 
; hessee valley. The old river was 
having its face lifted. At near-by 
Pickwick one of TVA’s key dams 
had been built, creating one of the 
chain of the Great Lakes of the 
South. Hughes had not lost his 
zest for fishing so he gathered a 
few of his choice worms and “lit 
out” for Pickwick Lake where the 
fish were waiting with open 
mouths for ‘his luscious worms. 
Needs More Worms 
The fishing fever grew and as it 
mounted he needed more worms, so 
he payed some of the river darkies, 
boys who knew the habitat of the 
Hughes brand of worms, to dig 
him several gallons. He planted a 
box of them—‘‘just a pine box,” he 
explained, “about 18 inches wide, 
two feet long and ten inches deep. 
It was not long until my old cro- 
| nies were coming to me for bait 
and I had to plant more boxes.” 
All of this put ideas into this 
showman’s head. In 1940 he plant- 
ed several boxes—enough to sup- 
ply friends. He soon found the 
fishermen from distant places com- 
ing for his worms. “I just had to 
put a charge on them. I placed an 
ad in the local paper for more 
worms. The boys brought them in. 
That called for more boxes. More 
fishermen came for my worms— 
the fish ate them up and here the 
fishermen came back for more 
worms. That is how I got started 
in the worm ranching business.” 
“In 1941 I planted a pit in the 
back yard of our home. This pit 
was 10 ft. by 10 ft. square and 
3% feet deep. I filled it with all 
the worms I thought it would 
stand. I knew I would have enough 
bait for the local boys as well as 
those who came to fish from dis- 
tant places. However, I soon found 
my stock of worms growing low 
despite the fact they reproduce 
very fast. I had to resort to the 
newspaper ads and the worm dig- 
gers again. Soon I began to get 
orders for worms from fishermen 
who had been to Pickwick from 
other states. They had seen my 
boxes and wanted to plant a box 
of Tennessee worms of their own, 
or wanted a few hundred just for 
fishing purposes in their home 
waters.” 
Big Demand for Worms 
The success of 1941 fired Ches- 
terfield Hardin Hughes’ imagina-| all covered in burlap or other coy- 
to the demand for my red wigglers 
and brown anglers so I had to pre- 
pare to meet that demand or close 
up shop. I had no idea or desire to 
go into the ranching business with 
worms or anything else. I really 
wanted to go back, to the show 
boats. I knew they would soon be 
making the Tennessee towns all 
the way from the Ohio to Knox- 
ville when the dam program was 
complete on the Tennessee. 
“But here looked like a business 
that needed a master—not of mu- 
sic but of worms. I went to Peoria, 
Ill, where I took a short course in 
“wormology” at the Bureau of 
Zoological Research, and came 
back and prepared for the 1942 
season. I planted 16 pits 10 ft. by 
10 ft., 3% ft. deep, and went to 
work in earnest to supply the de- 
mand. I placed ads in sporting 
magazines. I also advertised in the 
local paper to keep the boys of 
my section busy digging worms 
for my pits. Orders\came by the 
thousands and today with 20 pits, 
despite) the war, I am shipping 
worms to the 48 states of the 
American Union and some are go- 
ing to Canada.” When asked about 
the size of his orders he stated 
they were from 150 to 20,000. “I 
have one firm buying 20,000 












> 
if 
HiGeSS PAGE 5 
SRA ta acne hae we 5 SLL 
He Can Keep 
Contributed 


This beautiful lake — looks so inviting 
A few may fish; but it’s not exciting | 
Now the boat is idle and the oars are dry 
They can’t catch a mess that a man can fry 
There’s fifty thousand fishes in this lake 
Mostly too small for one to take 
Because of the law, granting no permission 
By the will of the Fish & Game Commission ny 
One hundred thousand fishes in this lake 
Smaller and smaller; with less to take 
The re-stocking came without intermission > 
By the authority of the Fish & Game Commission 
A million fishes they must raise 
‘To stock and re-stock for political praise 
‘We've too many fishes; don’t need many more 
Any one can see that our fishes are poor 
To make matters worse we have a closed season 
When our fishes propagate without reason 
There’s no feed to feed ’em, so they do not grow 
That’s why we can't keep ’em —that we all know 
Could we reduce the number —’till there is food to spare 
Fertilize the waters and re-stock with care? i 
We could have bigger fishes without more addition 
It would be a kindly act for our Fish & Game Commission 
(Here’s a poem and picture sent to FCN by a sportsman who evi- 
- i inti em just to 
worms from me a month,” he said.| dently knows something about fish. We are printing the poem j 






































Ranch Covers City Block 
The worm ranch has now ex- 
panded over the principal part of a 
city block and it keeps a well- 
staffed shipping department busy 
preparing the worms to go out by 
parcel post. When asked about the 
counting and the packing for ship- 
ping, Hughes stated, “We count— 
never average — them, and of 
course we throw in a few extra 
for good measure. We pack them 
in damp moss or other light mois- 
ture-holding material, and put in 
tins or boxes for shipping.” f 
When Hughes first started sell- 
ing worms and putting up his signs 
on the outskirts of Savannah on 
highway 64, the people smiled 
about a man trying to make money 
out of wigglers and anglers, but 
they kept buying his worms at 35c 
per hundred and taking their creel 
limit from the fishing streams and 
Pickwick Lake. Now no one laughs 
at Hughes. They take their hats 
off to him and even some of the 
natives will tell you. that he pays 
his income tax now in four figures. 
Hughes just smiled when asked 
about the income tax story. 
Showmanship in Worm Business 
Hughes was. not in the show 
business 19 years for nothing. He 
has put showmanship into his 
worm ranch. You would think you 
were entering the gates of a circus 
when you go onto the grounds of 
his worm ranch. There is a large 
sign painted on white in red, yel- 
low and black which reads “En- 
trance to Hughes Worm Ranch.” 
When you arrive at the door where 
he has all his 20 “hatcheries,” as 
he calls them, there is a sign 
“Visitors Welcome.” On the inside 
is a sign “Visit the Jungle.” It’s a 
jungle all right, but an orderly one. 
The 20 large pit hatcheries are 
NS (gle A he eee eee 
i the sun ‘does not reach 
“the aod earth” above the wig-| closes down shop from the 15th of 
gling worms, just under the sur-! December until the 15th of March 
face. All you have to do to see 
whether they are really hatching 
or not is to raise the cover of one 
of the pits and fork up a bit of 
earth and there the worms are by 
the handful. Yes, there are eggs, 
too—about the size of a grain of 
wheat or less. 
eggs,” he explained, ‘will hatch 
out 4 to 6 worms in 30 days and 
they are full fledged adult worms, 
two to four mches in length, in 120 
days. They hatch the year around 
provided the temperature in their 
breeding places does not go below | 
40 degrees. I have taken care of! 
that feature by covering the hatch 
beds with all the leaves of the] oq 
family yard in the winter time. 
points to take care of their ra- 
tions. A little corn meal, cotton- 
seed meal, sour milk and coffee 
sassy. All you have to do is stir 
this kind of worm grub just under 
the surface. They will come up and 
ground meat,” he explained, “but 
why cultivate a worm’s palate for 
remind the game and fish commissions not to forget their obligations 
to the sportsmen.) 
5 
Chesterfield Hardin Hughes 
and just lets the worms worm it 
out for themselves. Hughes him- 
self “lights out’ to New Orleans 
to visit the night clubs where he is 
still known for his piano playing 
days. He may don a tuxedo and 
give them a few tunes to show 
them that the worms have not 
eaten away his love for music al- 
though they have filled his pockets 
with cash—something the ivory 
keys did not do. 
No. 3— 
land. In some instances, acid bot- 
tom soil conditions can be correct- 
by the introduction of lime- 
stone to bring about a better grow- 
ing condition for plant life. 
All of these things lead up to 
that same fact, Wild Ducks Must 
Eat, and the kind of duck shooting 
you will enjoy next season, sort of 
rests in your own hands. 
If you want to know what to 
plant and when to plant it in or- 
der to attract wild ducks to your 
lake or stream, write Mr. Coon 
a letter and he will give you the 
“low down.” Write him at Game 
Food Nurseries, Oshkosh, Wis. 
(We wish to thank Mr. Coon for 
the foregoing article, and extend 
to him the invitation to write an- 
other of his good articles for FCN 
any time he has time to do so. In 
the first issue of the paper Mr. 
Coon wrote a story dealing with 
the necessity of plant life in fish 
ponds. That article was read by 
everyone who received a copy of 
the paper, and we received many 
compliments on the story. 
“Bach of these 

What Worms Eat 
“Worms eat but they need no 
grounds keep my worms fat and 
get it. Of course they would eat 
meat when he will stay as fat and 
happy on corn meal and butter- 
milk?” 
There are no epidemics in worm- 
land, or at least none have visited 
the Hughes worm ranch. “No, I 
have never heard of any worm dis- 
eases,” states Hughes. “They grow, 
multiply and replenish the earth, 
if you will keep the temperature 
at 40 degrees or above. They are 
waiting the palate of a hungry 
bass.” 
