People do not realize how short a time it takes for brush and trees to take over a property.
Eighty acres of clear crop and grass land in Arkansas, forty years ago within ten years of being abandoned, was a jungle of trees and briars. It is impassable now. It will take major cleaning to restore it to crop land.
In NE Oklahoma, 13 acres of what was once good grass land twenty years ago is today briar patches with trees growing out of ever nook and cranny. On my property, only yearly mowing with a brush hogging has kept it from being taken over by trees and briars.
Anyone remember the Trans-Amazon highway being built fifty years ago? When they got a section paved and done, within a year the natural growth of the jungle destroyed the roads.
And abandoned lots which once contained houses in Detroit are now small woodlands......and some contain pheasants.