Watts: Changing Landscapes

Early visitors to Vermont found it a beautiful and wild place but with far too many trees. So they set to work, carving farm fields out of the old-growth forests, pulling stumps from the ground, cutting 100-foot fir trees into chunks for firewood, planks for houses and masts for ships. By the time they were done, Vermont was nearly 80 percent cleared. The remaining trees were mostly relegated to the sides of mountains and the northern regions of the state.