Excerpt from Insect and Other Animal Pests of Cinchona and Their Control in Puerto Rico Earthworms. - Earthworms of undetermined species have some times caused trouble ih nursery beds made of forest duff, a spongy, friable, humus material matted with tree roots. The worms impeded drainage and aeration by rapidly breaking down the organic matter in the duff and bringing up into the mixture large quantities of soil. Beds built over subsoil tended to remain uninfested for a much longer period than those built over topsoil. Damage was overcome to some extent by removing the topsoil before constructing the bed (7, p. Cats - Wild house cats frequently do a great deal of damage in seedbeds and freshly prepared and planted nursery beds by scratching around in the loose planting medium. For complete protection it has been necessary to enclose the beds in wire netting. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.