Page
253
|
It is not easy to describe the Miami Valley
as it appeared in its primitive luxuriance to the eyes of the pioneers..
No woodland to-day, even in the most unfrequented spot, wears the rich
and exuberant garb which nature gave it. Under the transforming power
of civilization, the earth assumes a new aspect. Even the woods and the
streams are changed. Herbage and shrubs which once grew luxuriantly in
our forests have been eaten out by cattle until they can only be found
in the most secluded and inaccessible places. Trees cut down are succeeded
by others of a different growth.
The general face of the country exhibited to the pioneer of the Miamis
a wild luxuriance which cannot well be described. The great fertility
of the soil was attested by the variety and exuberance of its vegetation.
The native forests covered the whole surface of the county, unrelieved
by those open plains or natural meadows so common fifty or seventy-five
miles north. Even without the savage war-whoop, it was a wild country.
There stood the forests, not as now, by their contrast with the sunny
fields and dusty roads inviting the trav-
|
Page
254 |
eler and laborer to repose in their shade, but every tree
seemed an enemy to be slaughtered by the woodman's steel. Now the grove
is the attractive spot; then the clearing which let in the sunlight seemed
only inviting. One hundred and three species of trees and herbaceous
plants, native of the Miami woods, were catalogued by Dr. Daniel Drake
at the beginning of this century, thirty of which rose to the height of
sixty feet or more. There is no dividing line in nature between a tree
and a shrub, but most botanists have agreed arbitrarily upon thirty feet
as a minimum height of a species entitled to be called a tree. The richness
of the Miami woods will be seen when it is stated that in all Germany,
embracing the whole of Central Europe, there are but sixty species of
trees. In France, the number is given by some as thirty; by others, as
thirty-four. In Great Britain, there are but twenty-nine species above
thirty feet high, and of these, botanists describe but fifteen as large
or moderately high.
In Warren County many species of valuable hardwoods grew to magnificent
size and of good texture. The white oak here attained a remarkable development
of size, if it did not quite reach the same strength attained in West
Virginia. This noble tree, at the first settlement, would be found wherever
there was a good clay soil, three or four feet in diameter and three or
four hundred years old, but still green and flourishing; now these monarchs
of the forest no longer flourish. The old and large white oaks are dying
throughout Warren County; scarcely any large ones can be found which are
not dead at the top. Other valuable trees are also dying slowly but surely
from the top downward. The wild cherry, so valuable to the cabinet-worker,
was scattered throughout the county, and, in some localities, was abundant.
Now it is rarely found. On the plain between Muddy Creek and Turtle Creek,
west of South Lebanon, stood an extensive forest of wild cherry trees
of large size, which long since disappeared. Large black walnut trees
were cut down and reduced to ashes, a single one of which could now be
sold as it stood upon the ground for more than an acre of cultivated land
in some parts of the county. Along the margins of the streams were seen
the giant sycamores and elms; near by on the alluvial bottoms, the camp
of sugar-maples, with its undergrowth of papaw, indicative of a rich soil;
on higher grounds, the poplars, hickories and white walnuts grew to a
stately height. In some places, the beech had almost exclusive possession.
But a single grove of native chestnut trees was found between the Miami
Rivers. It stood near the boundary line between Butler and Warren Counties,
not far from Pisgah Church. The trees reached a diameter of four feet
and produced large quantities of chestnuts. Of the trees and plants whose
fruit might furnish food for man or mast for game and swine, the fox grape,
fall grape and winter grape, the gooseberry, the black currant, the haw,
the crab-apple, the mulberry, the beech, the black walnut, the butternut,
the hickory and several varieties of the oak, the hazel nut and the persimmon,
were all natives of the Miami forests.
An undergrowth of spice brush was spread over all the richer uplands
of the county, almost as impenetrable as the cane brake of Kentucky, and,
like the cane, it has disappeared with the encroachments of civilization.
The spice bushes greatly retarded the work of the early surveyors. They
were abundant on the plat of Lebanon long after the town had become a
county seat. The flowers of the shrub appeared early in spring before
the leaves, and were succeeded by small clusters of berries, which, when
ripe, in September, were of a bright crimson color. The berries are said
to have been used sometimes instead of allspice. A decoction from the
branches made a gently stimulating drink, sometimes used in low fevers,
and the shrub was often called the fever-bush. |