50 YEARS AGO: Jan. 16, 1975: Nightcrawlers thrive at Algar Worm Farm

By Sue Ann Luna Jones

Jan. 16, 1975, Ozark County Times:

One night in October 1972, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Gargione of Elijah were entertaining guests in their home. As they talked, a night crawler earthworm appeared from beneath the couch and slowly began to cross the living room floor. In a moment, the worm was followed by dozens of companions, wiggling and squirming across the carpet. 

The Gargiones had just begun their Algar Worm Farm that day, and the worms were not in their regular beds yet.

Their guests helped them scramble around the floor, capturing the worms and returning them to a temporary storage box behind the couch. After the worm round-up, one of the guests exclaimed, “I ain’t never been entertained like this before!”

The Gargiones purchased 20,000 worms from the Shields Worm Farm in Mountain Home, Ark., to start their business. “It’s more work than you might think,” said Mrs. Gargione. Night crawlers which are native to a tropical climate, require a temperature of at least 50 degrees to survive. Seventy to 90 degrees is preferable.

The worms live in beds of peat moss which are watered and sprinkled with a ground grain daily. Gradually, as the worms consume the peat moss, agricultural lime or baking soda is added to the beds to prevent souring, and Terramycin is added to the food to prevent disease. Thus, the mixture left in the beds when the peat moss is gone is an excellent fertilizer for gardens, Gargione said. 

The Algar Worm Farm consists of 40 worm beds in a well-insulated building, which the Gargiones constructed. The Gargiones have been unable to determine how many worms they have. “We raise ‘em by the millions,” Gargione said. Mrs. Gargione said she counted the first 20,000 worms “one-by-one” She recently told a friend she had been squeamish about handling the worms when they first started the farm, but now she handles them with ease. She still counts each order one-by-one. Determining the number of worms sold by weight is inaccurate, she said. 

The Gargiones sell worms to bait dealers and worm farmers, as well as to individual fishermen. They have shipped the worms as far as Oregon and California. Mrs. Gargione’s aunt, Martha Crowley, who lives with the Gargiones, sews cloth bags, which are filled with worms and peat moss, and inserted into cartons for mailing. Last summer, the Algar Worm Farm shipped over 150,000 worms around the country.

Nightcrawlers reproduce quickly. Each worm is hermaphroditic, containing both male and female sex organs. Each worm passes a capsule, or egg, every 21 days, Gargione said. In 11 days, this capsule hatches and releases from two to 20 baby worms. As the population of a farm increases, more beds must be built, so that the worms growth will not be stunted.

The Gargiones first became interested in worm farming after they visited the Shields’ operation in Mountain Home. The family moved to Elijah after Gargione retired from the Navy in 1970. They first visited the area as guests of Mr. and Mrs. Roy Overturf. “We liked the people, the country, the hunting and fishing,” Gargione said. “That’s why we moved here.”

The Gargiones have four sons: Al, 22, of Bakersfield; Mike, 20; Frank, 17, a senior at Bakersfield high school; and Tom, 15, a sophomore; and one daughter, Margaret, 14, a freshman, who was recently chosen the Future Farmers of America sweetheart at BHS. 

Gargione also drives a truck for the Far-Go Van Lines, which is headquartered in California. Mrs. Gargione and sons, Tom and Frank, manage most of the worm farm business, although she said the whole family often helps out when needed. Summer is the worm farm’s busiest time, as the nightcrawlers are not shipped when the temperature drops below 55 degrees.

Large garden earthworms have been recognized as a means of soil improvement for a long time. The worms’ burrows help loosen soil and allow faster root growth and better water absorption. The worms’ excretions help fertilize the soil. These garden worms and small red worms (Alloloborphora calliginosa) are used for bait as well as soil improvement. But these worms associated with soil improvement are not the same species as the African nightcrawlers. They are grown domestically for bait and breeding stock only, and have no value for soil improvement except in their native tropical habitat. 

Nightcrawlers are named for their tendency to travel at night. Thus, nightcrawlers’ beds must be lighted at all times to keep them from crawling out. They will also travel to avoid too much heat or cold. When Mrs. Gargione prepares fresh peat moss in a bed, she scoops out the stale peat moss, worm castings and the worms and places all in a bed heated by coils running underneath the floor of the bed. The heat causes the worms to crawl to the top of the peat moss and try to get out of the bed. When they reach the surface, they are picked up and carried to the bed of fresh peat moss. 

“A lot of people think a worm farm means a plot of dirt somewhere in the backyard,” Mrs. Gargione said. “But it’s a lot more than that to us, and it’s hard work.” Now that the family is so busy raising worms, she said, they don’t have time to use them to go fishing.