THE SAND HILL REGION. 121 



No. 1 is surface soil near Aiken ; No. 2 is subsoil of the same ; No. 3 is 

 from Piatt Springs, Lexington. 



In recent years, under high culture, " on a lot in Aiken, adjacent to the 

 one where tlie above analysis was made, the product was forty bushels of 

 corn, and thirty bushels of wheat per acre." Since the introduction of fer- 

 tilizers, level lands in the neighborhood of the South Carolina railway, 

 which sold in 1860 for three dollars an acre, have sold for thirty dollars 

 and even as high as forty dollars an acre. Throughout this region 

 thousands of acres, equal and superior to these, though not immediately 

 upon a railroad, are for sale at one dollar to five dollars an acre. 



GROWTH AND PRODUCTIONS. 



The growth is almost exclusively long leaf pine, and on the more 

 barren ridges, even this tree becomes stunted, and sometimes, on the 

 higher and finer sand crests, yields its place to the New Jersey tea plant, 

 which alone covers the dazzling whiteness of the sands. Usually, how- 

 ever, there is a heavy growth of long leaf pine, and this tree here — almost 

 on its northern limit in the State — attains its highest perfection, not only 

 as regards size, trees of three feet and four feet in diameter being not un- 

 common, but also as to the quality of its wood, which has more heart 

 and is more resinous than elsewhere, a fact duly recorded in the names 

 of localities, as Lightwood creek, and Lightwood Knot springs, the in- 

 habitants of even this mild climate being not unmindful of the light and 

 warmth furnished by this excellent fuel. There is often an undergrowth 

 of the forked leaf blackjack, and where there is a suspi^^ion of moisture 

 in the soil, this is replaced by the round leaf blackjack, a sure indication 

 here of better soil. On the hillsides, there are not unfrequently out- 

 croppings of kaolin, and here a growth of kalmia adds a pleasing variety 

 to the monotony of the pine forest. 



Besides the staple products of cotton, corn, the small grains, peas and 

 potatoes, common to this latitude, these soils have been thought specially 

 adapted to certain other crops. One locality has been known for more 

 than one hundred years as " Pinder Town," from the number of pea-nuts 

 formerly produced there. ]\Iany years ago the lands of Lexington and 

 Kershaw were thought especially adapted to the growth of Palma Christi, 

 and even with the rude appliances for its extraction in those early days, a 

 yield of one hundred and fifty gallons of excellent oil per acre was ob- 

 tained. These sandy soils produce sorghum, which, while it is of smaller 

 growth than that on more fertile lands, yields more abundantly a syrup 

 that is much superior in quality. No where are Avatermelons produced 

 with such ease and certainty, in so great quantities, of so large a size, and 



