While it's been a few years since I've been up around Malone, I was surprised to see how much of the land immediately around the village of Malone is good soils used for crop production, mostly silage and hay-ledge for dairy. Get north and west of Malone, you have more wetlands and forested areas whose shallow sandy soils have been depleted both due to historical agriculture practices and timber cutting for the iron-smelting industry at the turn of the history.

Franklin County and the greater Malone area is fairly upland, with many areas with largest forested areas. As such many people do heat their homes primarily with wood. That said, it's a lot of work to heat with wood, although it can be inexpensive source of energy if you have land. Many people and farms who heat their whole house with wood use those wood furnaces that heat water by running it through a jacket around an outdoor firebox.