The Usefulness of Your Own Worm Farm

In my free time, I love to go fishing. I have caught many a good size fish using earthworms as bait. I can remember going with my Uncle Perry as a young boy and digging for Night crawlers in nearby river bottoms. We would move an old rotten tree, take a rake and scratch through the rotten compost and find hundreds and hundreds of worms. My uncle would then put them in a large container, take them home and sell them to others for fishing bait. To beat the competition, he would sell them a penny a piece.

At his house, he had a large (antique today) wash machine wash tub. He would fill it with earth and worms and left over coffee grounds. He kept it in the shade with a tarp over it. Some of the Night crawlers would reach sizes of close to a foot. I remember once a man in a large Buick pulled in to buy some of them. When he saw how big they were, he screamed, "Those are baby snakes." He promptly ran for the safety of his car.

My uncle didn't get rich off his Night crawler business, but it did help pay a few bills.

In 1947 a breakthrough in the breakdown of an organic compost by earthworms was reported. Mr. J. I. Rodale at his farm in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, used a hybrid earthworm, which had been developed in 1927 by a Dr. Oliver from Los Angeles, to breakdown a regular compost very quickly. The earthworms worked down into the compost and converted it to rich organic first class compost ready for distribution on the land. Two important discoveries were made. 1. The compost did not have to be turned over. This way worms would not be destroyed. 2. The compost contained the highest material of soil nutrients for crop growth. This could be used to replenish the earth.

Earthworms do three important things for farmers. First they are essential in composting. Second they excrete chemicals which are high in nitrogen and phosphates. These chemicals help with the nutrients in the soil. Third, they burrow holes which help with aeration and water drainage. Soil rich in earthworms produce higher quality produce.