Dear Sir

I read your work on ‘Worms’ with great interest.¹ Just before I had been visiting a lady who was anxiously bent on improving a small grass plot some 60ft x 12ft enclosed with high walls in a town. She had consulted a gardener the foreman of one of the largest firms of *Nurserymen in the North of England²   He had told her “to destroy the worms for they eat the young tender roots of the grass”   I looked carefully to see if you wrote anything to confirm this statement, but find nothing to support it.³ I should esteem it a favour if you would inform me whether you have observed anything which leads you to infer that worms do eat the tender rootlets of the grass or the contrary.

I should not have ventured to trouble you, except for the thought that you might be interested in learning that the worm is believed thus to destroy the grass.

In consequence a diligent search was made for worms one night during a thaw last winter and on the small plot in question the servant gathered such a number that they were sent round to one or two houses as a wonder to behold. I asked how many there might be, and was told quite two quarts of them, the number to make up this quantity must have been very great.

I have always pleaded that the worms improve the lawn if the castings are spread with a soft brush, I referred my friend to your book, the reply sent back concluded with—but there is no question that they eat the tender rootlets of the grass.

Yours faithfully | Tho^s Birkett

* Mess^rs. Little & Ballantine | Carlisle.