ABSTRACT
Earthworms were first mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his famous work “Historia naturalis” and have been related to soil fertility since. On the basis of this observation that fertile soils often have high earthworm populations Pliny con cluded, “That the land is good, where crowds of eager birds are accompany ing the plough attacking the cultivated earth.” More detailed observations about earthworms were made by Gilbert White (1720-1793), an English country parson: “Worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and most of all, by throwing out such infinite numbers of earth, called worm casts, which, beeing their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and grass.” In Germany the discussion of whether earthworms are the source of the fertility and productivity of soils was advanced by Victor Hensen (Graff, 1979). At the same time Charles Darwin (1881) took an opposing position in The Formation o f
Vegetable Mould through the Action o f Worms with Observations on Their Habits. Today the fundamental findings of Darwin have been confirmed by numerous investigations.
