"OhioGuy" wrote in message ...
I just bought about a dozen bags of "Organic Valley" cow manure &
compost. When I spread it out, small wood pieces made up roughly 1/3 of
the whole composition!

The wood certainly is not composted, and I certainly would not feel right
about selling something marketed as a composted cow manure and compost,
when it has this much foreign matter.

Does this sort of thing happen often in the industry?

Your error was in buying "cow manure *and* compost".
You should have purchased "composted cow manure.

Whenever you buy "compost". regardless from who, you are buying a pig in a
poke... compost is a verb (something occuring), not a noun (a finished
finished product)... those wood chips are composting... compost is something
one does, not something that is. The fully composted portion of organic
matter is called "humus". There is one and *only* one way to know from what
humus was composted, that's to make your own... composting is like grinding
meat, the *only* way to know what/who's in it is to grind your own.

Mulch can be any solid matter that impedes plant growth, for gardening
organic matter is desirable, but mulch can be stone, plastic, rubber,
roofing shigles, broken glass, anything that doesn't readily decay.