Tillage by Insects.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2922, 12 June 1888, Page 2

Tillage by Insects.

The action of earthworms, as described by Darwin, is not the only animal work that is being clone in overturning and breaking up the soil, A high authority mentions that tlio operations of various other creatures appear to be quite important. In America some twenty or afore species of mammals burrow in the forest and overturn considerable earth, though the quantity of this is quite insignificant in comparison with that acted upon by invertebrates. In the moist forests where they abound, crayfish may bring to the surface over moderate areas material which may amount to a complete covering two feet deep in half a century. Over extensive districts, or at least throughout eastern North America, the autwp by far the most effective animaljfi'pi'eparing the soil for plant use, the part they play being even much greater than that of the earthworms thftfhselyes, The latter are confined cultivated clayey fields, while the ants rapidly overturn the soil material as' well within the forests as in the open fields wherever that material is ot a sandy nature.