The Portland daily press., 1901-01-03
WAYS OF THE EARTHWORM
Interesting Facts About the Small
Boys Favoritc Fish Bait.
est. Louis Globe. Democrat. }

N6ts 1<OOAb OAODc'1foAOSAoUJ
Earth-worms have reason for being
ever SO much more important than to
serve as halt for fisher men. For all their
lowly estate, few creatures have done
more for mankind. Earthworms are not
merely the original ploughmen-they
have brought about the condition OF the
earth's surface that makes other plough
ing possible and profitable.
Fiald crops, for the most part, grow
and feed upon vegetable nlold-the layer
of warm, light, brackish earth resting
upo the sub-soil. save ny grace of the
earth-worm vegetable mold would exist
only in those places where dead leaves
and deCaying growths generally resolved
themsei into their original elements.
The earthworm, which may be described
as n embodied appetite, eats everything
animal matter, green leaves and dead
ones, twigs, leaf stalks, small stones and
earth. The Iesidunm of all he casts up
on the surface at the rate, throughout
pastures and garden ground, OF some ten
tons year. Continue the process hun
dred years or even fifty, ana many inches
of 1ine friabie, productive soil result.
Beyond all that their burrows let
down light and air from the subsoil.
Sometimes the burrows run six feet deep.
In winter ths worms hibernate in round
ish chambers at the bottom. The cham
pers are lined with very small stones or
hard, rounded seed, A dozen worms sleep
together, knotted into squirming bali
1t is only in the winter sleep tnai they
are thus gregarious. AT other times
they go In pairs. Though they do not
in captivity appear very sensible or either
cold or heat, in hot, dry weather they go
almost as far down as they do in winter.
Eyelegs, they have yet a certain percep-
fipn n nnbt rAtraGftnu fafOrn IL THAR
burrows Vibration also affects them
hence, say the country folk, the wood
cocks habit of drumming to call than
out OF the ground. Their senee OF smell
Is acute, and by the help OF 1t they lind
their food, either buried or lying upon the
surface, AS soon as ills found the
worms drag 1t 20 the burrow. They
burrow by nressure of their smooth hinged
bodies and by literally eating out the
earth ahead. The digestive apparatus In
cludes a crop and gizzard, like those of
birds, After the manner OF birds, the
glzzards arc kept supplied with ANAL
stones to serve as millsbones in grinding
down the food.
The burrows are plastered all round
with the fiuely chewed earth, and keep
shape often long after they are untenant-
ed. From the dead leaves which make SO
large Fart OF their food the worms
secrete humuS acids, which attack and
soil. Thus the earthworms not merely
transform the soil chemically andmeohani
nally but add to the bulk of it--sinoe soil
OF every kind comes from the disintegra-
ton of rocks. Further, many leaves
dragged down into the burrows are only
partly eaten and, decaying, furnish gases
which permeate the soil and react upon
Its mineral element.
Earthworms are the best allies Of those
gentlemen, the antiquaries. A coin, an
arrow head, a spear point, an inscribed
slab, a tessslatei pavement, they bury,
surely, safely, to await the day OF resur-
reotion. Inc burying is done In two
ways-py castings spread above the thing
to be buried, and by undermining the
soil beneath. Earth honeycom bed with
burrows SINKS in times of heavy rain or
frost. Thus. in course OF thousand
years, an object may be many feet under
the surface, yet remain exactly as 1t srell
Indeed. the wise men declare the earth
worms. IN the mass. keep the whole face
OF the planet In a state OF gradual evolu-
ton.