Land clearing in Alexandria, TN

Basin ground at the Wilson County line

Alexandria sits at 653 feet in the far northwest corner of DeKalb County, Wilson County out the west side and Smith County over the north line. That’s basin floor. Head southeast and the country stands up quick. Smithville, seventeen miles down 70, is 1,037 feet, close to four hundred above town. Low limestone means shallow soil, and shallow soil grows cedar. Let a field out of grazing and cedar and briar will have it before the second summer.

Hickman Creek bottoms

The creek runs northeast through town toward the Caney Fork. The flats along it hold water long after the hill fields have dried, and they grow honeysuckle and box elder thick enough you can’t see water from the road. Ground that soft takes tracks better than wheels. What you’d want back on a bottom like that is the fence line and the stock water. Get the bank open again without it getting cut to pieces.

Pasture, hay and nursery stock

DeKalb County keeps 16,551 head of cattle and cuts 14,799 acres of hay, and it holds more pasture than cropland, 31,916 acres against 26,862. Woodland inside the farm fences comes to 26,759 acres, near enough even with the cropland, which tells you how close the timber sits to the grass. Seven farms in ten run under 180 acres. Nursery and greenhouse stock is the county’s biggest crop by money, fifth in Tennessee.

Nineteen miles out on 70

Straight down the Nashville Highway from Lebanon, and the Wilson County line already runs against the west side of town. Route 53 skirts the east edge and goes seven miles north to I-40 at New Middleton, so a trailer gets in from either direction. The county fair has been held here since 1856, and its grandstand is the oldest in the state. This has been farming country a long while. Call Shaun and he’ll come look at what you’ve got.