What does Irving's treatment of the physical environment contribute to our experience of sleepy hollow and why

The setting of any story is relevant to how we understand the story. In the case of this story, Sleepy Hollow is just that, a sleepy kind of town where mysterious things can happen. A headless horseman, Katrina Van Tassel, a school teacher who is rather strange - these all fit with the idea of a slow, sleepy kind of place.