The nineteenth century economy of cove husbandry was almost entirely invisible. Few travelers visited or penetrated the coves and most observers noted the rundown cabins at the foot of the mountains not realizing the invisible capital represented by livestock roaming in the cove forests. Although John Muir was a great naturalist, on his journey across the Cumberland Plateau, he completely missed the point of this invisible wealth. There is another feature of the topography of the coves that affected early settlers and remains important today. The relatively thin soils of the plateau did not hold much water during heavy rains.
Rainfall tends to cascade rapidly from the plateau into the coves below.
Today, if you walk these benches in the springtime, the blooming of daffodils may be the only surviving reminder of the first houses in these coves. In general terms, local weather is the outcome of the interaction between moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and cold fronts that sweep across the region from northwest to southeast. Winter temperatures typically range down to the mid to lower 20's with short periods of zero or sub-zero temperatures in some winters. These trees were mostly killed by the deep cold. Temperatures on the plateau tend to be a few degrees lower than temperatures of the nearby valley.