The Adventures of a Grain of Dust Part 8

HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY

What have burrowing animals to do with the drainage system of the land? (Keffer's "Nature Studies on the Farm.")

How do angleworms help drain the soil?

How do the forests help make good use of the rain that falls, not only for themselves but for the rest of us?

How do the rains help to warm the ground in the spring? The heat they carry into the soil is produced in two ways. The book mentioned above tells of one of these ways, and Russell's little book, "The Story of the Soil," tells of another.

Beale's "Seed Dispersal" tells how the raindrops (working together, of course) help plant maple, elm, sycamore, willow, and other trees that grow by the waterside, to scatter their seeds.

You'd be surprised what a series of adventures the seeds of a bladderwort have before they get planted on some new sh.o.r.e, after having left the parent shrub. First, they float down-stream, as you know, but when autumn comes on, what do you suppose they do? They go to bed. Where? Right in the bottom of the stream. Then how do they ever get up and get planted on the sh.o.r.e? Well, you just look it up in that Beale book and see.

Do you know how the rains help to get the mineral food up into the plant?

And why swamps are such poor producers?

And how the sun acts as a pump for the plant world?

You will find answers to all these questions in Shaler's "Outlines of Earth's History" and in your books on botany and agriculture.

Russell's book on the soil tells how the ancient Gauls and Britons used to fertilize their land with marl, and how the tides help to fertilize England. It's just the reverse of the way Father Nile looks after Egypt, as you will see.

If you want to read an interesting description of the difficulties of farming on wet lands, you will find it in this meaty little book.

If you don't know how serious a thing it is to let gullies form in land, look it up in Shaler's "Man and the Earth" and you will see.

How do you suppose deserts that get so little rain themselves could _help make it rain_ in other places? For example, the desert of Thibet is the chief cause of the monsoon rains that do so much for India. That part of your geography that explains the circulation of the air will help you figure this out; particularly with a map under your eye that shows the relative location of the desert and the Indian Ocean, over which the monsoon winds blow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN EXAMPLE OF MAN'S DEBT TO THE EARTHWORM

Much of the earth's Maytime bloom and beauty is due to the labor of our humble little brother of the dust, the earthworm; a striking fact which was never recognized until the great Charles Darwin looked into the matter and wrote a book about him. This picture by Millet is called "Springtime" and hangs in the Louvre, in Paris.]

CHAPTER V

(MAY)

It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures.

--_Darwin: "The Formation of Vegetable Mould."_

WHAT THE EARTH OWES TO THE EARTHWORM

Suppose father had a hired hand who would plough his fields, fertilize them at his own expense, build his own house, board himself, and for all this ask only the privilege of living on the place, studying Botany, Geology, and Geometry, and enjoying the scenery.

"Where can I get a man like that?" I imagine father saying.

"You've got him now," you might reply. "He's already working for you--thousands of him, and has been working for you--millions of him--for thousands and millions of years."

We have all known him well from boyhood by several names--angleworm, fishworm, earthworm. He also, as you will find in the dictionary, has a nice long Latin t.i.tle. And it is particularly fitting that his name should be so a.s.sociated with antiquity, since he belongs to one of the oldest families in the world; a family far older than the Roman Empire itself, which his people long ago helped grind back into the dust from which it came.

And, speaking of Romans, every few years Mr. Earthworm does what Julius Caesar did, captures the whole of England--all the best parts of it--and then, unlike Caesar, gives it back to the English, made over again, better than it was before, as you will see.

I. THE CITIES OF WORMS

If you happen to be a high school boy you, of course, know about a certain city of Worms and what great things took place there once upon a time, but there are many cities of worms on any good farm, and each has more inhabitants than the famous city of Worms of history--something like 25,000 to the acre; and, in garden soil, 50,000!

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANOTHER "CATHEDRAL OF WORMS"

In the story of the Reformation in your history you will read of a certain Cathedral of Worms and what took place there once upon a time.

Here is a "cathedral of worms" as interesting to the student of nature as that famous edifice is to the historian and the architect. It is the tower-like casting of a big earthworm and was found in the Botanic Garden at Calcutta. The picture is "life-size."]

Did you ever notice how big boulders in a field are frequently sunk into the ground as if dropped from a great height? It is the earthworms that help sink them in the course of their soil-making. They like the moist shelter of the stones and burrow under them. Finally the weight of the stones crushes the burrows, and so the stones sink down.

PIONEER LIFE AMONG THE EARTHWORMS

Poor soil, as every boy knows, is a poor place to look for fishworms.

But you have noticed that the mounds the worm throws up on such soil are larger than those on rich soil. The reason is that the soil, being less nutritious, the worm must eat more of it and, in so doing, pulverizes and fertilizes it. But a menu of earth alone not being to the earthworm's liking, undesirable regions have fewer of these farmers working underground; and this, for the same reason that these regions are spa.r.s.ely settled on the surface--it is so hard to make a living.

So the earthworms may be said to have a decided taste in landscape. They don't care for desert scenery like Gerome's picture of the lion's big front yard,[9] but they are very fond of orchards where the soil is rich and leaves are plenty. The pathways artists are fond of putting in landscapes would also probably attract the eyes of earthworms--if they had any, for the worms prefer soil a little packed, as it is in pathways, because it makes more substantial burrows. And, singularly enough, the worms also like most the very thing that the artist emphasizes to lead the eye into his picture--the border lines that _define_ the path. It is along the edges of a pathway that you find most worms.

[9] "The Two Majesties." This painting, by a great French realist, shows a lion getting home rather late, after his night out, stopping for a look at the rising sun; a thing with which, owing to his habits, he is not very familiar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Painted by F. O. Sylvester._

_Painted by Westman._

THE EARTHWORM'S TASTE IN SCENERY

Two features common to both these pictures--the trees and the pathways--appeal to earthworms as well as artists, for reasons you have learned in this chapter.]

The earthworm, in addition to working over and fertilizing the soil already made, actually helps make soil out of rock. He does this in two ways: (1) With acids--for, like the Little Old Man of the Rock, he is a chemist; (2) by grinding up rock in a little mill he always carries with him.

HOW THE EARTHWORM COOKS HIS MEALS

The earthworm's favorite diet is leaves and he has a way of cooking them. It is not quite like our way of cooking beet or dandelion leaves, but it answers the same purpose--it partially digests them. In glands, in his "mouth," he secretes a fluid which, like our saliva, contains an alkali. But the earthworm's alkaline solution is much stronger, and when he covers a fresh green leaf with it--as he is usually obliged to do in Summer when there are so few stale vegetables, the kind he prefers, in his market--the leaf quickly turns brown and becomes as soft as a boiled cabbage.

Of course, there are always dead leaves in the woods, and these, which even the cow with her fine digestive outfit cannot handle, are a delight to the earthworm; for he also has a much larger supply of pancreatic juice than the higher animals, and this takes care of the leaves after he has swallowed them. He swallows bit by bit; just like a nice little boy who has been taught not to bolt his food.