CARDWELL Farms, located near Sussex, New Brunswick, Canada, in the “Dairy Center of the Maritimes,” began as a landscaping company in 1991. Owner Jim Cunningham needed topsoil for a project, and wanted an alternative to mined topsoil. “As it turned out, if I wanted an alternative, I had to make it myself, so I started a composting operation,” recalls Cunningham. “There was a large hog farmer nearby that had odor problems due to the manure, so I started with that feedstock. And being in the middle of a dairy area, cow manure was plentiful. And bark was available from the forestry industry.”