A FORTUNE IN WORMS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 133, 8 June 1906, Page 1

A FORTUNE IN WORMS.

<*■ There are strange enterprises engaging the attention of industrious men in other parts of the world. Carl Beers, for example, has made a fortune out of worms. In the State of Maine, as elsewhere, the mofcjt attractive and'popular bait for angling is the earthworm. Biit the soil of Maine is deficient in humus and decayed vegetable matter, and consequently angleworms are not plentiful. It was in these circumstances, more than ten years ago, that Carl Beers, a florist of Bangor, went into the business of rearing earthworms fc>r the rnirppse of selling them to the lpeal fishermen, as well as for shipment to Boston. He imported a breed of dark purple worms from Belgium, which were prolific breeders, though coarse and strongflavoured, and later he secured a box of giant angle-worms from India. In the course of a few years he was able to supply live worms by the million to his customers. Those shipped to Boston were sold in job lots at 75 cents a pound. To the liyhn* customers he sold worms of the average size for ten cents a dozen. Though his. greenhouse was a small one, and though his trade in flowers was never extensive, he made money rapidly from the sale of worms. Last year he retired and went to his old home in Sweden, a wealthy man. Another man who has made money out of worms is Sidney Clark, of Presque Isle, Mighigan.. He recently described how he came to take to worm-gathering. " All earthworms come to the surface at night," he said, '"and fg&d. on the grassy ami rotting leaves near the entrance to their burrows. While the worms were busy eating, the Indians of Canada had a habit or dragging a blanket with its under side smeared with bird-lime along the surface of the land, thus picking up the fat worms, together with sticks and lumps qf earth and small pebbles. After dredging the land tor a time the Indians carried the blanket to the camp, picked off the worms, and added another coating of lurd-ljm.fr.'' This is the method Clark adopts. The only detail he has added Is the use of a blue light, which facilitates work without fi-jghtening the worms back into the ground.