Every effort was made to fill a pit to the brim within one week. If
there wasn't enough material to fill an entire pit within one week,
then a portion of one pit would be filled to the top. To preserve
good aeration, every effort was made to avoid stepping on the
material while filling the pit. As mixtures of manure and bedding
were brought out from the cattle shed they were thinly layered atop
thin layers of mixed vegetation brought in from the dried reserves
heaped up adjacent to the compost factory. Each layer was thoroughly
wet down with a clay slurry made of three ingredients: water,
urine-earth, and actively decomposing material from an adjacent
compost pit that had been filled about two weeks earlier. This
insured that every particle within the heap was moist and was coated
with nitrogen-rich soil and the microorganisms of decomposition.
Today, we would call this practice "mass inoculation."