ABSTRACT
The potential for earthworms to improve soil aggregation and porosity and the subsequent effects of these changes in soil structure on plant growth and soil hydrology were perhaps first recognized by Gilbert White in 1777 when he wrote “worms seem to be 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 for grain and grass” (White 1789). Before these observations, earthworms were often regarded as pests by farmers and detrimental to crop growth.
