The Great World's Farm: Some Account of Nature's Crops and how They are Grown

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Macmillan, 1900 - 365 pages

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Page 72 - For to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure...
Page 71 - The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions ; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed by earth-worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.
Page 310 - Twixt dripping ash-boughs, — hedgerows all alive With birds and gnats and large white butterflies, Which look as if the May-flower had caught life And palpitated forth upon the wind; Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist, Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills; And cattle grazing in the watered vales, And cottage-chimneys smoking from the woods, And cottage-gardens smelling everywhere, Confused with smell of orchards. "See,
Page 306 - We are the army of the Great God ; we produce ninety-nine eggs ; if the hundred were completed, we should consume the whole earth and all that is in it*.
Page 72 - ... slopes, probably to avoid being flooded. Gardeners and farmers express their detestation of worms; the former because they render their walks unsightly, and make them much work: and the latter because, as they think, worms eat their green corn. But these men would find that the earth without worms would soon become cold, hard-bound, and void of fermentation; and consequently sterile...
Page 342 - that in less than twenty-six years after, other lands had cherries, even as far as Britain beyond the Ocean.
Page 343 - Nettle in that place, it is reported, That the Soldiers brought some of the Seed with them; and sowed it there for their use, to rub and chafe their Limbs, when through extreme cold they should be stiff and benumbed; being told before they came from home, that the Climate of Britain was so extreme cold, that it was not to be endured without some friction or rubbing to warm their blood...
Page 308 - Benedictus of Monferrand, Archbishop of Lausanne, condemn and excommunicate Ye obnoxious worms and grubs, that nothing shall be left of Ye, except such parts as can be useful to man." The government ordered its officers to report the consequences of the excommunication; but the saucy chronicler says " that no success had been obtained — probably on account of the sins of the people.
Page 7 - God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work," yet the surface of populous countries affords generally the insipid produce of man's labour ; it is an easy error to consider that he who has tilled the ground, and has sown the seed, is the author of his crop, and, therefore, those who are accustomed to see the confused produce, which in populous and cultivated countries is the effect of leaving ground to itself, are at first surprised in the Pampas, to observe the regularity and beauty of the vegetable...
Page 69 - ... eggs are laid upon the buried animal, and then the beetles emerge, cover it with earth, and then fly away. In some cases they will bury a whole series of corpses ; and in the wellknown experiments of M. Gleiditsch, four beetles buried, in a small piece of earth, four frogs, three birds, two fishes, one mole, two grasshoppers, the entrails of a fish, and two pieces of meat. And so strong and persevering are these insects, that a single beetle succeeded in burying a mole in two days. Now the mole...

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