Permeability is moderate in the loess and slow in the till. The seasonal high water table is 1.0 foot to 2.0 feet below the surface in spring during normal years. Many areas are used for cultivated crops. Corn, soybeans, and small grain are the principal crops. Other areas are used for forage, hay, pasture, or woodland.
Native vegetation is hardwood forest.
Stephenson County, Illinois, 1969. The 2Bt or 2Btg horizon of the Fishhook soils is the lower part of a modern solum superimposed upon a Sangamon paleosol in the Illinoian or Pre-Illinoian till. Many of the properties of those horizons are believed to be inherited from the paleosol. The variability of the properties is related to the geologic truncation of the paleosol before it was buried by loess, and to the extent of modern soil development in the old materials. Calcium and other bases have been replenished in some pedons after burial by loess through infiltration.