HARNESSING THE WORMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 August 1938, Page 3

HARNESSING THE WORMS

WORK OF CULTIVATION. Having taken steps to restore and conserve fertility, I should feel happier about it if that sinister qualification “for an emergency” were left out, states an English agricultural writer. We cannot eat fertility, even in an emergency, only the products of fertility, and they may not be available until, perhaps, eighteen months after the emergency is upon us.

If owing to laboui’ shortage it is impracticable for the general run of farmers to break up much land now, it is essential, if land is to be broken up in an emergency, that it should be stocked up in the meantime. Some weeks ago I burned off eight or ten years’ accumulation of dead grass from a piece of waste land that has been recently added to the farm. The grass species were mostly tall sorts such as cocksfoot and tall oat, but the cover was so thick that no soil was visible at the time a match set the whole lot up in smoke. The sward, now, is quite noticeably tufted, tufts and bare soil showing up in about equal proportions, but what has interested me chiefly is, the enormous number of worm casts that have appeared, The effect of the conflagration has been to “harness the worms” to the job of cultivation, and unless, in our pastures, we can set the worms to work we are not likely to derive full benefit from applications of lime and slag.

In short, we have got to graze and tread the soil to such an extent as will expose the soil to view.