the building of the stack of compost and the gathering of the mud from the canal were simultaneous. On one side of the canal the son, using a clam-shell form of dipper made of basket-work, which could be opened and shut with a pair of bamboo handles, had nearly filled the middle section of his boat with the thin ooze, while on the other side, against the stack which was building, the mother was emptying a similar boat, using a large dipper, also provided with a bamboo handle. The man on the stack is a good scale for judging its size.
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Fig. 104.—A completed compost stack.
We came next upon a finished stack on the bank of
another canal, shown in Fig. 104, where our umbrella was
set to serve as a scale. This stack measured ten by ten
feet on the ground, was six feet high and must have
contained more than twenty tons of the green compost. At
the same place, two other stacks had been started, each
about fourteen by fourteen feet, and foundations were laid
for six others, nine in all.
During twenty or more days this green nitrogenous organic matter is permitted to lie fermenting in contact with the fine soil particles of the ooze with which it had been
