Earthworm

I think it's a old school, 'cause I know-

They would've, they, I feel like during the Earthworm-

Okay, confirm that.

Yeah, 'cause I think all them Nickelodeon stuff had-

family-owned company.

Anyone else we want to applaud? We've got Two E's, Earthworm, Buy Round, Earl's, Sweet Shells.

Rolex, we love Rolex.

It's a tag.

And that's why I needed several levels beyond the typical story to kind of convince me of its reality while I was living through it.

The good news is that Earthworm, I view, didn't last forever.

There was a slowly spinning white light that came to me.

It had these fine silvery and golden tendrils around it, and it had the appearance of kind of coarse glass.

You're like, well, hot dog before pre-cooked hot dog is pink.

Earthworms is pink.

So.

That too.

End of chapter 4

what the earth owes to the earthworm 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 organised 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, Angoworm, Fishworm, Earthworm.

He also, as you will find in the dictionary, has a nice long Latin title, and it is particularly fitting that his name should be so associated with antiquity, since he belongs to one of the oldest families of the world, a family far older than the Roman Empire itself, which his people long ago helped grind back to 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 twenty five thousand to the acre and in garden soil fifty thousand 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 fish-worms 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 doing so 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 sparsely 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 jerome's picture of the lion's big front yard 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 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 one with acids for like the little old man of the rock he is a chemist two by grinding up rock in the 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 the acids in the earthworm's stomach acting on the leaves help make other acids which remain in the soil after it has passed through the earthworm's body and help dissolve those fine grains of sand which make your bare feet so gritty when mud dries on them and not only that but this coating of soil lying upon the bed-rock hastens its decay for the earthworm's burrow runs down four to six feet sometimes farther besides the soil he thus grinds up and fertilizes so well with leaf mold what your text-book on agriculture calls humus the earthworm does a lot of useful grinding in connection with the building of his house he begins as we do by digging the cellar but there he stops for his house is all cellar he makes it in two ways one by pushing aside the earth as he advances two by swallowing earth and passing it through his body thus making the little mounds you see on the surface the earthworm system at panama a principle similar to his swallowing operations is frequently employed in engineering as in making the panama canal where dredging machinery dug out swamps and pumped the mud through a tube into other swamps to fill them up and help get rid of the mosquitoes in pushing the earth away the worm uses the principle of the wedge stretching out his nose as you have often seen him do when crawling and poking it into the crevices in the ground much as the wheat roots poke their little noses through the fertile soil the earthworm makes and as in human engineering and the work of the ant the earthworm doesn't throw the dirt around carelessly he casts it out first on one side and then on the other using his tail to spread it about neatly the tiling in the earthworm's house the walls of the earthworm's house are plastered too at first they are made a little larger than his body then he coats them with earth ground very fine like the clay for making our cups and saucers and for making the beautiful white tiling on the walls at the stations of a city subway when this earthworm porcelain dries it forms a lining hard and smooth which keeps the earthworm's tender body from being scratched as he moves up and down his long hallway it also enables him to travel faster because it is smooth and it strengthens the walls the burrows which run far down into the ground as all finally do toward autumn end in a little chamber into this tiny bedroom the worm retires during the hot dry days of august and there he spends the winter usually with several companions all sound asleep packed together for warmth and rugs on the floors sometimes the summer and winter residences are quite ambitious several burrows opening into one large chamber and each tunnel having two sometimes three chambers of its own like a fashionable apartment with its main reception-room and still more like the central sitting-rooms in greek and roman palaces and the earthworm seems even to have some idea of mosaics for it is the general practice to pave these chambers with little pebbles about the size of a mustard seed this is to help keep the worm's body from the cold ground in addition to the mosaic floors the earthworms have rugs with lovely leaf patterns like the oriental rugs that are so highly prized and as in the case of genuine oriental rugs no two patterns are alike these rugs are leaves which the earthworm drags into his burrow not for food but for house furnishing when used for house furnishing they are placed in the entrance hole that is to say they are used to coat the mouth of the burrow to prevent the worm's body from coming in contact with the ground the mouth of the burrow of course is just where it is coldest at night in the summer the time of year when the earthworm spends a great deal of his time in the front of his house the surface of the earth you know cools very rapidly after sunset and the dew on the grass in the morning is so cold it makes your bare feet ache the worm requires damp earth around him because he breathes through his skin and must keep it moist but at the same time he is sensitive to cold and to draughts pebble fortress defences against the foe so he is very careful to keep the front door closed this he does by stopping it up with leaves leaf stems and sticks he also protects the door with little heaps of smooth round pebbles but these pebbles are of a larger size than those he uses for paving the floor of his chamber besides helping to keep out drafts these pebbles serve another purpose as our ancestors the cave builders barred the door with boulders to keep out bears and other unwelcome callers so the earthworms are protected by the pebbles to a certain extent from one of their enemies the thousand-legged worm because of these little forts the earthworms can remain with more safety near the doorway and enjoy the warmth of the morning sun so we might have reproduced cohort's morning as a kind of landscape the earthworm enjoys 2.

where mr earthworm keeps his brain just as we have little brains in the tips of our fingers the earthworms have brains in the ends of their noses they have neither eyes nor ears but like that wonderful girl helen keller they make up for the lack of these senses to a remarkable degree by the development of the sense of touch they acquire quite a little knowledge of botany for example they not only know that leaves are good to eat but they know which is the petiole and which is the base they always drag leaves into their burrows by the smallest ends because this makes it easier to get them through the door and it is not by mere instinct that they do this supply worms with leaves of different form from those which grow in the regions where they live and they will experiment with them until they find just the best way in which to pull them into the burrows after that they will always take hold of them so without further experiment that is the majority of them will do this for earthworms are like other little people all of them are not equally ambitious or studious and the earthworm also knows something about geometry cut paper into little triangles of various shapes and pretend to the worms that they are leaves by scattering them near the mouths of the burrows then remove the leaves with which the burrows are stopped the worms will pull in the slips to close the door and they will most of them take hold by the apex of the triangle because that is the narrowest point the earthworm's taste in music so you see the earthworm is a very cultivated country gentleman with his knowledge of botany and geometry and his taste for landscape but this is not all he also has opinions about music there are certain notes that apparently get on his nerves put worms in good soil in a flower-pot and some evening when they are lying outside their burrows set the pot on the piano and strike the note c in the bass clef instantly they will pull themselves into their burrows they will do the same thing at the sound of g above the line in the treble clef although they cannot hear they are sensitive to vibrations and these are carried from the sounding-board of the piano into the pot they are less sensitive when the pot itself is tapped the music seems to go right through them why the early bird gets the worm except in rainy weather worms ordinarily come out of their burrows only at night by early morning they have withdrawn to their holes and lie with their noses close to the surface to get the warmth of the morning sun then the early bird gets them the reason a robin cocks his head in such a funny way like a lord with a monocle just before he captures a worm is not because he is listening as many people think for the worm isn't saying a word and he isn't moving and wouldn't make a bit of noise if he did move the robin's eyes are on each side of his head and not in the middle of his face like ours so he must turn his head in order to bring his eye in line with the hole where he sees the tip of mr earthworm's nose and many people also believe that earthworms come down with the rain even park policemen believe it at least one said to me in central park in dry spells you won't see one but let there come a little shower and the walks and the drives will be covered with em like the fairy stones that fall with the rain in the old country do earthworms come down with the rain the reason you see so many worms after a rain is that earthworms like moisture and the rain seems to make them feel particularly good and breed a spirit of adventure so out of their holes and away they go a rain is their shower bath and you know how a shower bath makes you feel the mornings when the earthworms are apt to be thickest are those following a comparatively light rain in early spring when the worms have recently awakened from their long winter nap with the beginning of the rainy season in the fall the worms also do a good deal of travelling into foreign lands but in both spring and fall you will usually find more worms after a light shower than after a long heavy downpour if the worms were drowned out it would be the other way around don't you see to be sure you will often find dead worms in shallow pools by the roadside particularly after autumn rains these are sick worms and the chill was too much for them but it's remarkable how low a temperature a good husky angleworm can stand a professor in the university of chicago near where i live tells me he has often found the ground in the neighboring park covered with worms after november rains when his hands and those of the students who were helping him gather them for study, were numb with the cold.

and how much work do you suppose these farmers do in grinding up and fertilizing the soil in many parts of england the whole of the best land the vegetable mould passes through their bodies every few years and they are doing similar work all over the world they not only fertilize the earth by mixing it with the leaves they eat and those that decay in their burrows but their castings help to bury fallen leaves and twigs and dead insects and they also bring up lower soil to the surface thus increasing its fertility and by loosening the soil they let in more air remember that roots like people must have air 3.

The Mill of the Earthworm For the grinding up of the earth and the leaves, the earthworm has, as I have already said, a little mill that he always carries with him.

Do you know what a gold mill is? Well, a gold mill is a mill that grinds up rock and so grinds out the gold.

And that did make me chuckle.

And finally, we have David Ullis as Mr. Earthworm, known for roles in Black Beauty, The Big Lebowski, The Theory of Everything.

And he is Remus Lupin in Harry Potter.

So we've got some Harry Potter folks in here as well.

Earthworms are essentially nature's digestive engines.

An earthworm consumes fine earth along with decaying leaves, fungi, and organic matter from the surface.

And inside the worm's anatomy is a highly specialized organ called a gizzard.

certain fundamental truths seem to have been impressed upon the human intellect and the reason is compelled to report in accordance therewith but an analysis of these fundamental truths is futile and the attempt only leads one into wild speculations the only advantage that comes from the attempt is the strengthening of mental muscle of those who are able to stand the strain of the exercise and the fact that by such attempt we are made aware that we do not know and cannot know by reasons of the nature of the intellect and are thus prevented from harboring absurd and childish theories about the unknowable to know that we do not know and cannot know is the next best thing to actually knowing the writer does not wish to be understood that the limits of the human reason are unalterably fixed On the contrary, he believes that additional fundamental portions of truth are superimposed upon the mind of the race from time to time, and he believes, yes, knows, that there are regions of the mind that give reports higher than those conveyed through the intellect.

And he believes that there are phases of knowledge in store for man that will raise him as much higher than his present position, as that present position is superior to that of the earthworm.

And he believes that there are beings in existence today on planes of life as yet undreamed of by the average man, who far transcend man in power, wisdom, and nature.

He believes that man is merely just entering into his kingdom, and does not realize the grandeur of that which is his divine inheritance.

That's really a problem.

Also, earthworms, which are very important in the living soil, may disappear.

And this is a real indicator of polluted soils.

We often measure the number of earthworms.

So the pollution will have some kind of cascading effect.

And at the end, the pollution may affect the production of crops, and then affect the food that we consume, not affect only other yields that are produced, but also the quality.