Dodge City times., 1883-02-22
Worms.

influence upon the soil. The fact is,
that although every one living in the
country has observed many different
kinds of worms. and nota few OF them
have felt the effect of their destructive
work and condemned them, and perhaps
heaped maledictions upon their heads.
no doubt have wondered in their minds
what such apparently useless animals
were created for. But the truth is, that
no animal. however small and appar-
emily useless, has been created without 4
purpose. and many animals, bugs and
insects which we condemn, were created
for us, we might say, and are our friends,
although we may not know it. The
study of such apparently worthless
animals may not be interesting to some,
and those who take an interest in these
crawling animals may be laughed at;
but still to the curious there is something
interesting in the study of the insect
tribe. Perhaps we owe more to Charles
Darwin for our knowledge of worms
than to any other man, and it was his
delight to study the habits of these ami
mais. Though considered useless, they
are not. The great service of worms
to agriculture lies in the pulverizing and
admiXing operation performed upon the
soil while passing through their bodies,
an operation to which is almost wholly
due, as it now seems, that rich layer of
fine uniform black earth near the sur
face. called vegetable mold. Worms
live in all parts of the world, and the
several species and genera are alike in
appearance. Agigantic species in Cey-
Ion is two feet long and one-half
inch in diameter. Moisture seems
necessary to them, for exposure to the
they will live for months submerged in
water. In midsummer, when the
ground is dry, and in winter, when it is
frozen, they penetrate to greater depth
and cease working. At other times they
are active, remaining near the surface.
where they can at any time issue from
their holes; but it is only at night that
they do so. Then they can be seen to
reach forth their Slender bodies, moving
about on the surface. while the tail re-
mains fixed in the hole. At any dis
turbance they retreat with great quick
ness into the hole. AS to their senses:
Worms have no eyes, but they must
possess a general sensibility to light,
since they distinguish between night
and day. To heat they are only moder-
ately sensitive. The sense of hearing
is absent Touch is highly developed;
they feel over objects, and undoubtedly
acquire notions of their shape; the
slightest jar or vibration is Immediately
evident to them; slight puff of air
they feel at once. Their sense of smell
only extends to favorite articles of food,
but these it always enables them to find.
They will thus dig up bits of onion,
cabbage or fresh meat-all favorite
foods with them-buried near their bur-
rows. The digestive organs consist of
mouth, gullet, crop, gizzard and intes-
tines. These follow each other in the
order named, like straight tube, with
engagements from one end of the body
to the other. Like fowls they swallow
small stones to aid the digestion.
Their food consists of an enormous guam
tity of earth, from which they extract
any digestible matter it may contain,
and of half-decayed leaves of all kinds
as well as fresh leaves. These leaves
are dragged into the mouths of their
burrows, a depth of from one to three
inches. and are there mo;stened with
secreted fluid, which has the effect on
fresh leaves of quickly killing and dis
coloring them. This tiuid resembles
one of the digestive fluids in men. and
as used by worms it probably serves the
double purpose of softening the leaves
for easier mastication and of partly di-
gesting them outside the mouth. How
many would imagine that any acre of
good cultivated land contains some
twenty five thousand worms? Who can
help being surprised on learning that
the rough fragments of earth lying at
the openings of burrows are a kind of
manure voided by the worms, and that
the amount of manureideposited on
each acre, where it has been measured,
exceeds ten tons for one year. Worm
manure. however, cannot fe called
rich, as great portion of worm food is
-. a. 80 4