A FARM FOR WORMS

Evening Star, Issue 22990, 22 June 1938, Page 7

A FARM FOR WORMS

More than 15,000,000 wriggly worms I are shipped from a five-acre worm farm jin California, says ‘ Armchair Science,’ London. The owner, an ardent'fisherI man who found that bait was costly 1 and difficult to procure, started with a 20 x 30 plot in his back yard, and by intensive study of the habits and feeding of worms, built a business. He found that worms made a round trip to the recesses of the earth every 24 hours, coming to the surface; at night to feed and deposit the vegetable moulds which are their contribution to the economies of Nature. Miles of tunnels and burrows are bored this way by the millions of worms at present underground on his farm. He found that worms must be fed different foods at different seasons of the year. The rate of increase of worms is amazing. Each female lays 400 eggs a year. Each egg yields a male and female who go through life together unless separated by Fate. Mortality in a favourable environment is; low, and starting with a stock of 10,000 worms, the owner pyramids until he possesses 8,000,000 worms at the end of two years, which is the time required to mature a marketable worm 3 to 8i inches long. , ' The worms are packed six dozen to the can and sell for 75 , cents a container. Shipped to fishermen and other users such as schools, and laboratories, they are guaranteed to keep alive for 93 days if given a spoonful of water every thirty days. The soil in which they are packed is impregnated with the food on which they live. The worm farmer himself has become a worldfamed authority on worms. He is consulted by the official bureaus of many nations.