1897.] The Swamps of Oswego County, N. Y. 799 
in the air is maintained by the extensive surface of the sphag- 
nous moss from which it steadily evaporates great quantities of 
water. Many plants, especially the delicate orchids, are found 
only in the moss. The humidity of the air immediately at the 
surface of the moss at once suggests the conditions in the trop- 
ics where the epiphytic orchids thrive. 
COMMERCIAL VALUE.OF THE BOGS. 
The capacity of the moss to hold moisture and the evenness 
and freedom with which it gives it up, has led to its extenstve 
use in packing the roots of plants during shipment. In the 
Lily Marsh and Mud Lake in Oswego township, the moss has 
been removed from a large partof the moors. The effect upon 
the bog itself is anything but wholesome. By this treatment 
a clean, mossy moor is turned into a stinking, sour, unsightly 
and treacherous mud-hole. Nowhere did I ever see ‘such vio- 
lence done to nature as where the moss is removed from a 
moor. The traditional woodman’s axe does not compare; a 
burnt forest soon recovers itself to a certain extent; but a bog 
from which the moss has been taken reclothes itself very 
slowly, and will probably never become a thick turf as origin- 
ally. Certainly none of the rarer plants will endure such 
treatment. 
CONCLUSIONS. 
1. Swamps form one of the striking and important topo- 
graphical features of Oswego County. 
2. These may consist of a lake, a moor and a wooded belt 
but in many the lake has been converted into a moor, and in 
others both lake and moor have passed over into wooded tracts. 
3. The surface of the county was fluted by the ice; this de- 
termines the outline of all the swamps. 
4. The finely pulverized remains of plants (mud) are stirred 
up with every wind, so that material is constantly shifted from 
the muddy shores to deeper water. 
5. The agitation of the water by the wind has two import- 
ant influences on the shore: its violence prevents sphagnum 
from growing at the water’s edge; Cassandra, sedges and De- 
codon, with others, form a barrier at the edge; second, it pre- 
