1-lG THE PIEDMONT REGION. 



GROWTH. 



Remarkable changes have occurred in the growth of tlie upper country 

 since its settlement, during the middle and earlier part of the ISth cen- 

 tury. The " long-drawn, beautiful valleys and glorious highlands," 

 spoken of by Lord Cornwallis, were then interspersed with " forests, 

 prairies, and vast brakes of cane, the latter often stretching in unbroken 

 lines of evergreen for hundreds of miles " (Logan). On the highlands, 

 the oak, hickory and chestnut were of large growth, standing so wide 

 apart that a buffalo or a deer could be seen by the pioneer hunters for a 

 long distance. There was no underbrush, and the woodlands were car- 

 peted W'ith grass and the wild pea vine, the latter growing as high as a 

 horse's back. The cane growth was the standard by which the early 

 settlers estimated the value of the land. If it grew only to the height of 

 a man's head, the land was esteemed ordinary ; but a growih of twenty 

 or thirty feet indicated the highest fertility. This cane growth not only 

 filled the bottoms, but extended up the slopes to the tops of the highest 

 hills. Thus it was designed to place the first house built on the present 

 site of the town of Abbeville, on the summit of the hill ; but afterwards, 

 when the tall cane that covered the whole place was cleared away, an 

 error of more than fifty yards was discovered. The Trappean soils around 

 Ninety-Six, the " flat woods " of Abbeville, the " meadow woods," LTnion, 

 and the blackjack lands of York and Chester were prairies, with no growth 

 of trees, but covered, for the most part, with maiden cane. Lipper Caro- 

 lina was then not inferior to any portion of the great West as a grazing 

 country. Buffalo and deer in great numbers roamed through these 

 luxuriant pastures. Henry Foster, a pioneer settler on the Saluda, in 

 Edgefield, counted one hundred buffalo grazing at one time on a single 

 acre of ground in Abbeville. The original forest has disappeared almost 

 altogether, and has been replaced by younger oaks of small growth, by 

 underbrush, and by the loblolly pines of the abandoned fields. The cane 

 has gone likewise. The wild pea vine is no longer known, though since 

 the stock has been penned, under the new fence law, a plant supposed to 

 be it has appeared in the open woodlands, with several other grasses not 

 observed before. The prairies have become covered with a growth of 

 heavy bodied post oak and blackjack ; the latter, in turn, has now given 

 place to the cedar in Chester. The chestnut has been dying out for fifty 

 years. In some localities where it once flourished, it has entirely gone, 

 and in others, the large dead stems and stumps are the only vestige of 

 this valuable and stately tree. The chinquapin is also sickening and 

 dying, and the chestnut oak likewise. During some yeai-s past, somewhat 



