Figure 3. — Physiographic divisions of South 

 Carolina. 



The Coastal Plain extends 100 to 125 miles inland 

 from the Atlantic Ocean and occupies about two- 

 thirds of the State's area. It was divided, for the 

 purposes of the Forest Survey, into northern and 

 southern units (fig. 3), the former somewhat larger 

 than the latter. The Coastal Plain is heavily 

 wooded, containing 70 percent of the State's forest 

 area. Loblolly pine is the predb'rtiinant type, but 

 there are many scattered bodies of longleaf pine, 

 and in the extreme southeastern counties, slash pine. 

 Along the rivers are broad strips of bottom-land 

 hardwoods. 



For some distance from the coast, the Coastal 

 Plain is practically level; but in the western part it 

 is gently rolling, reaching in places an altitude of 

 500 feet. The eastern part or lower Coastal Plain 

 is mostly less than 100 feet above sea level. Its 

 soils, except for the deep muck in the river bottoms, 

 are sedimentary loamy sands or sandy loams. 

 Much of it is too poorly drained for agriculture; 

 pine flatwoods and river-bottom swamps of hard- 

 woods and baldcypress cover the greater part 

 (fig. 4). The middle and upper Coastal Plain is 

 higher and has more pronounced slopes, is better 

 drained, and has somewhat heavier soils, though 

 generally not as heavy as those of the piedmont. 

 More land is cultivated on the upper than on the 

 lower Coastal Plain. 



A belt of sand hills, 20 to 30 miles wide, which 

 once formed the Atlantic coastline, fringes the 

 western edge of the Coastal Plain. Here soil suit- 



able for agriculture is limited; most of the land is 

 better adapted to forests, but these are inferior, as a 

 rule, to the forests in other parts of the State. Much 

 of the sand hill forest is of scrub oak or open longleaf 

 pine stands. In this report the sand hill region is 

 included in the northern and the southern Coastal 

 Plain units, about half in each. 



The Piedmont Plateau includes the western third 

 of South Carolina, up to the narrow mountainous 

 strip along the northwestern boundary (fig. 3). The 

 terrain is distinctly rolling (fig. 5) and the elevation 

 ranges from 500 to 1,000 feet above sea level. The 

 soils are basically fertile, and most of the land has 

 been cultivated at one time or another during the 

 past century, but the agriculture customarily prac- 

 ticed has made the region one of the most severely 

 eroded in the United States. The Soil Conservation 

 Service estimated in 1934 that 700,000 acres had 

 been virtually ruined for tillage {17)^. Erosion has 

 been especially severe in the middle and lower por- 

 tions of the piedmont. Here much of the land is 

 distinctly submarginal for agriculture, although 

 capable of supporting productive forest stands. 



The piedmont, including the mountains, contains 

 30 percent of the State's forest area. Loblolly pine 

 gives way to shortleaf pine on the middle piedmont 

 and the latter to Virginia pine on the upper pied- 

 mont. 



The Blue Ridge Mountains and their foothills in 

 the extreme western part of South Carolina include 



^ Italic numbers in parentheses refer to Literature Cited, p. 62. 



