This is largely a cash-crop area. Cotton, corn, soybeans, and wheat are major crops. Feed grains and forage are grown on dairy farms. About 16 percent of the area is in pasture or hay. About 46 percent is in forest of mixed pine and hardwoods.
Lumber is the major forest product, and some pulpwood is harvested.
The present trend is toward the conversion of the pasture and forest to cropland. About 3 percent of the area is used for urban development or other purposes. There is an increase in urban development near the metropolitan areas. They are deep, medium textured soils that have a thermic temperature regime, an udic moisture regime, and mixed mineralogy. Most soil areas have been disturbed, and only small remnants of the former prairie vegetation remain.