Wherever rocks in ridges come to the surface of a valley, plain, or gentle slope, water is apt to be collected or retained by them, forming ponds or shallower pools, which may or may not dry up in Summer, but which are seldom dry late in Autumn, when plants are dying and leaves are falling. The latter, caught in their descent by the harsh winds of the season, are swept along the bare, dry ground, till they strike the water, which arrests their progress and soon engulfs them. Thus an acre of watery surface will often collect, and retain the dead foliage of five to ten acres of forest; and next Fall will render its kindred tribute, and the next, and the next, for ever. There cannot be less than fifty millions of acres of Swamps in our old States (including Maine); whereof I presume the larger area was covered with water until the slow contributions of leaves and weeds filled them above the level at which water is no longer retained on the surface. And still, they are so moist and boggy, and their rank vegetation is so retentive, that the leaves swept in from the adjacent hills and glades are firmly retained and aid to increase the depth of their vegetable mold, which varies from a few inches to twenty and even thirty feet. In my old County of Westchester, I roughly estimate that there are at least five thousand acres of bog, whereof but a very few hundreds have yet been subdued to the uses of cultivation. Whoever digs a quantity of Swamp Muck and applies it _directly_ to his fields or garden, will derive little or no immediate benefit therefrom. It is green, sour, cold, and more likely to cover his farm thickly and persistently with Sorrel, Eye-smart, Rag-weed, Parsley, and other infestations, than to add a bushel per acre to his crop of Grain or Roots. And thus many have tried Muck, and, on trial, pronounced it a pestilent humbug.