About 40 percent is forests of mixed hardwoods, most of which, except for a few wooded mountain ridges, are in small farm woodlots. A large acreage in Virginia is in the George Washington and Thomas Jefferson National Forests. Hay, pasture, and some grain for beef cattle and dairy cattle are the principal crops.
Some cotton is grown south of Chattanooga.
Small acreages of corn and soybeans are grown throughout the area, mainly on narrow strips of bottom land and on adjacent low terraces. Some isolated linear mountain ridges rise to nearly 1,500 m above sea level. The area is highly diversified. It consists of many parallel ridges, narrow intervening valleys, and large bodies of low, irregular hills. The ridges and valleys often have a difference in elevation of 200 m.