‘In estimating the quality of new lands in America,’ says Dr. Dwight, ‘serious errors are very commonly entertained, from want of due attention to the following fact: Wherever the forest has been undisturbed by fire, they have accumulated, by shedding their foliage through a long succession of ages, and by their own decay, a covering of vegetable mould from six to twelve inches deep, and sometimes from eighteen to twenty-four. This mould is the best of all soils, and eminently friendly to every species of vegetation. It is, indeed, no other than a mere mass of manure, and that of the very best kind, converted into mould; and so long as it remains in considerable quantities, all grounds produce plentifully. Unless a proper allowance be made, therefore, when we are forming an estimate of the quality of soils, for the efficacy of this mould, which, so far as my observation has extended, is not often done, those on which it abounds will be of course overrated. On the contrary, where it does not abound, the quality of the soil will, in a comparative view, be underrated. Hence all maple lands which, from their moisture, are incapable of being burnt, are considered as more fertile than they ultimately prove; while oak, and even pine lands, are, almost of course, regarded as being less fertile. The maple lands in Ballston are found to produce wheat in smaller quantities, and of a worse quality, than the inhabitants, misled by the exhuberance of their first crops, expected. Their pine lands, on the contrary, yield more and better wheat than, till very lately, they could have been induced to believe. The same things severally are true, as I have already observed, of the oak and maple lands in the county of Ontario.