chlorinated and organophosphated pesticides.... It is very rare for
there to be any problem."

Campbell tells an interesting story that points out how thoroughly
composting eliminates pesticide residues. He said,

"Once I was curious about some leaves we were getting from a city
park where I knew the trees had been sprayed with a pesticide just
about a month before the leaves fell and we collected them. In this
case, I had the uncomposted leaves tested and then the compost
tested. In the fresh leaves a trace of . . . residue was detected,
but by the time the composting process was finished, no detectable
level was found."

_Lime._ There is no disputing that calcium is a vital soil nutrient
as essential to the formation of plant and animal proteins as
nitrogen. Soils deficient in calcium can be inexpensively improved
by adding agricultural lime which is relatively pure calcium
carbonate (CaC03). The use of agricultural lime or dolomitic lime in
compost piles is somewhat controversial. Even the most authoritative
of authorities disagree. There is no disputing that the calcium
content of plant material and animal manure resulting from that
plant material is very dependent on the amount of calcium available
in the soil. Chapter Eight contains quite a thorough discussion of
this very phenomena. If a compost pile is made from a variety of
materials grown on soils that contained adequate calcium, then
adding additional lime should be unnecessary. However, if the
materials being composted are themselves deficient in calcium then
the organisms of decomposition may not develop fully.