From Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee (1887), page 797

“The topographical features of Fayette County are not very strongly marked. The northern portion is slightly undulating, the middle and western rather hilly with extended plateaus, the southeast hilly with fertile valleys, and the extreme southern portion an unbroken level, the latter being the Wolf River bottoms.

“The formation underlying the surface of the county is, as seen in the bluffs, railroad cuts, washes, etc…., generally a stratified mass of sands, more or less argillaceous, which when exposed to the weather, are of red, yellow and orange colors, and is known as the LaGrange sand. This, however, is often concealed by the Orange sand and the drift. No minerals are found.

“The soils are generally sandy, with more silicates in those in the southern portion of the county, and a gradual increase of clay in the northern portion. Generally the soils are quick, and produce good crops, the principal ones being wheat, corn, oats, sweet and Irish potatoes, tobacco and cotton. The soil easily washes into gullies, sometimes very large, but this is prevented to a great extent by the horizontilization system of cultivation, which is generally adopted. This system of levels has each row to carry off its own water.

“The timber, of which there now remains none for export, was heavy and grew in abundance, consisting of cypress, oak, walnut, poplar, hickory, bum, ash and beech.

“The water courses of the county are the Wolf River, the largest which passes across the entire southern portion of the county; the Loosahatchie, which arises in the eastern part of the county and runs west nearly through its center; the North Fork of Wolf River, which also rises in the eastern part and joins the main stream at Moscow, and Beaver, Bear, Bennett, Bluff, Muddy, Town, Treadwell, Jones, Laurel and Cypress Creeks“