The small towns are quaint and picturesque but the vast majority of it I saw was a lot of farmland.
A large potion is, indeed, farmland, part of the nation's "breadbasket." I was raised in west Texas and the "great plains" are quite pretty to me, the rolling hills, grasslands, wheat and corn and other crops, old windmills, livestock -- neat stuff. Of course I tend to see beauty where many see wasteland or "lots of rocks" or other disparaging remarks.
While a lot of the east can be pretty, all too much of it is hidden by the trees and made much less pleasant (for me, anyway) by the high humidity and overly abundant bugs plus, in many areas (PA where I Lived for a year, and others), the gloomy weather, sometimes two weeks or more at a time of drizzling rain, etc. In addition, after I've been there a little while, I start to feel closed in, almost claustrophobic, because you often can't see more than half a mile, or maybe only a couple of miles, while I'm used to vistas that let me see 60, 80, even 100+ miles.
So a lot of it is in the eye of the beholder.
