Faro had gone to the trouble of dumping dry leaves and pine needles back there, which at least would make it easier to clean up.

It tasted as if the tavern-keeper, a scrawny fellow with beady suspicious eyes, had been dumping new leaves and water in yesterday's leavings since the founding of the city.

Dump alongside a barrowload of compost, peat or fallen leaves or, failing that, old newspapers or straw.

People who live near either of the brooks tend to dump leaves and other materials into the water.

In remote areas of the county, many homeowners have enough land to start a compost pile or dump leaves and grass without adverse affect.

Kansas City, Mo., stopped collecting yard waste to try to save $800,000, but saved only $600,000 because people began illegally dumping leaves and trees on back roads, said Donald K. Ewbank, a city spokesman.

The town has conceded dumping leaves, brush, road sweepings and similar debris, as well as scrap concrete, on the site to fill in one side of a valley.

As they struggle to find places to bury or burn their trash, officials throughout the New York metropolitan region are beginning to see the lunacy of an autumn tradition - dumping leaves in landfills.

Many towns may have to pay private haulers to dump leaves at sites in other counties like Burlington, Somerset and Sussex, said Mr. McClure, at costs double the current cost at Kingsland, which is about $6 a cubic yard.

Acknowledging that a ban on composting would "create tremendous problems for the county on where to put leaves, which come from Yonkers and Mount Vernon," Mr. Feiner said: "We don't want the county to dump leaves there next year.