The Forests Of The Green Mountain State

...Information on the forests of Vermont including forest ownership, characteristics and trends, composition and structure, timber supply, timber quality, products from Vermont's forests, sustainability, and forest health...

Excerpt from The Forest of the Green Mountain State Forests provide wood and other forest products, watershed protection, wildlife habitat, biodiversity, a setting for recreation, and much more. They have played a major role in the history and culture of Vermont. The early settlers found nearly all of the State covered by forests. The initial clearing of these woodlands was slow as most colonists established small subsistence farms. Forest clearing became widespread around 1800 as Vermont's farmers began supplying food and wool to a rapidly growing nation. The thousands of small farms created a strong agriculture - based economy. The city of Burlington, Vermont, became a major producer of timber during this time. By 1880, only about a third of Vermont remained forested. As early as 1845, George Perkins Marsh warned Vermont farmers about the damage that results from clearing forests. Eventually, those who once assumed that the State's forest resource was unlimited were faced with timber shortages. Soil erosion from farm land increased and silt now muddied creeks that once ran clear. And because of the rapid runoff of storm water, springs that previously flowed year round were dry during the summer. As Vermont's forests diminished, so did once abundant populations of important species of wildlife, for example, the beaver, black bear, white - tailed deer, wild turkey, and wolf. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.