Land clearing in Carthage, TN

Where the Caney Fork comes in

The Caney Fork meets the Cumberland right at the edge of town. The mouth sits around 446 feet and the streets above it sit at 515, so that’s close to seventy feet of climb in a short walk. That pattern repeats all around Carthage, a strip of flat bottom, a bank, then hillside going up behind it. Plenty of deeds hold all three. One property, three different problems, and the bottom is the easy part.

Thin soil over limestone

Smith County is the seam where the flat Nashville Basin runs into the rugged Highland Rim, and you can read it in the dirt. Limestone sits close to the surface, so the soil is shallow and rock will find a mulching head if you get careless with the height. Cedar, locust and hackberry take over ground like that, because they don’t need much. On a slope that thin, the chip left lying on top is what keeps the hill where it is through the first hard rain after.

Old patches going back to woods

This was tobacco and livestock country for generations, and a lot of those patches are small, steep and awkward to work with anything modern. Leave one alone a few seasons and the fencerow closes first. Briars, then privet up the wet end, then cedar through the middle of what used to be pasture. By the fifth year you can’t see the far fence from the gate. Ground that goes backward that fast comes forward about as fast, if you catch it before the stems get heavy.

Out US 70N from Lebanon

US 70N leaves Lebanon just east of downtown and runs through farmland and Rome into South Carthage, across the river from the courthouse. That’s about twenty-one miles from the square. From the south, State Route 53 comes up out of Gordonsville and off Interstate 40. Either way it’s a short haul, and Shaun would rather walk the slope with you than guess at it over the phone.