of architecture and home building they might be said to have a high
"R" value or to be good insulators When a large quantity of
decomposing materials are heaped up, biological heat is trapped
within the pile and temperature increases, further accelerating the
rate of decomposition.

Temperature controls how rapidly living things carry out their
activities. Only birds and mammals are warm blooded-capable of
holding the rate of their metabolic chemistry constant by holding
their body temperature steady. Most animals and all microorganisms
have no ability to regulate their internal temperature; when they
are cold they are sluggish, when warm, active. Driven by
cold-blooded soil animals and microorganisms, the hotter the compost
pile gets the faster it is consumed.

This relationship between temperature and the speed of biological
activity also holds true for organic chemical reactions in a
test-tube, the shelf-life of garden seed, the time it takes seed to
germinate and the storage of food in the refrigerator. At the
temperature of frozen water most living chemical processes come to a
halt or close to it. That is why freezing prevents food from going
through those normal enzymatic decomposition stages we call
spoiling.

By the time that temperature has increased to about 50 degree F, the
chemistry of most living things is beginning to operate efficiently.
From that temperature the speed of organic chemical reactions then
approximately doubles with each 20 degree increase of temperature.
So, at 70 degree F decomposition is running at twice the rate it
does at 50 degree, while at 90 degree four times as rapidly as at 50