The surface, gently undulating, is carpeted with shrubs and blue grass. The oak and elm forests which prevail on the cold tenacious clays are replaced with a thrifty growth of ash, beach, walnut, poplar, sassafras and sugar trees of superior size.
In autumn, when the frost just touches the ripening foliage of the latter, as if by magic, they are at once arrayed in festive robes of glory. The forest becomes a giant parterre, brilliant with a thousand vivid tints of purple, gold, and crimson, relieved by a setting of russet and azure, while the emerald carpet is flecked and strewn with drifting leaves ripened to the deepest hues of orange, brown, and vermillion.
—John Collett, Wabash Class of 1847, from his 1875 Geological Survey
of the land surrounding Sugar Creek.
