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In the years of peace that have passed since the great national conflict, many changes have taken place in the commonwealth. The speculative spirit which arose from the inflation of values during that period in some degree affected almost every one, and still survives, when all values but that of labor have sunk to nearly their former level. Too great a proportion of the people sought to gain their living by their wits as speculators,—go-betweens of the producer and consumer, agents of every real or sham business and enterprise, largely increasing the useless class who really do nothing, produce nothing, and add nothing to the wealth of a State. This class is largely drawn from the greatly predominant agricultural population.

Farmers, who in the years before the war could only bring the year around by the strictest economy, suddenly became rich men, as farmers count wealth, by the doubled or trebled value of their land, and the same increase of price of all its products, and fell into ways of extravagance that left them poorer than before, when prices went down, and withal more discontented with their lot. Men bought land at the prevailing extravagant prices, and a few years later found themselves stranded, by the subsiding tidal wave, on the barren shores of hopeless debt, and many such became ready recruits for the insane army of Greenbackers.

The extravagance of their employers infected the wage-earners, and led them to the same silly emulation of display beyond their means, rather than to the founding of comfortable homes,—the ambition for something not quite attainable, which brings inevitable unrest and discontent.

Sheep husbandry, the old and fostered industry of the State, with which it was so long identified, deserves more than a passing mention. As has been said in a former chapter, early in the century Vermont flocks were greatly improved by the introduction of the Spanish merinos. During 1809 and 1810, William Jarvis, our consul at Lisbon, obtained about 4,000 merinos from the confiscated flocks of the Spanish nobles, and imported them to this country. The flocks of pure blood bred on Mr. Jarvis's beautiful estate at Weathersfield "Bow," lying on the western bank of the Connecticut, and half inclosed by the river, were not excelled by any in this country. From the Jarvis importation, and from a small flock of the Infantado family imported about the same time by Colonel Humphreys, our minister to Spain, the most valued merinos are descended.

From various causes the value of sheep and wool has exhibited remarkable fluctuations. During the years 1809 and 1810, half-blood merino wool sold for seventy-five cents a pound, and full blood for two dollars, and during the war with England rose to the enormous price of two dollars and a half a pound; full-blood rams sold for sums as great as the price of thoroughbred stallions, even ram lambs bringing a thousand dollars each: but such a sudden downfall followed the peace that, before the end of 1815, full-blooded sheep sold for one dollar each.

During the next ten years the price of wool continued so low that nearly all the flocks of merinos were broken up, or deteriorated through careless breeding. At that time an increase in the duties on fine wool revived the prostrate industry, but unhappily led to the general introduction of the Saxon merinos, a strain bearing finer but lighter fleeces, and far less hardy than their Spanish cousins. The cross of the puny Saxon with these worked serious injury to the flocks, but was continued for twenty years, and then abandoned so completely that all traces of the breed have disappeared. The Spanish sheep again became the favorites, or rather their American descendants, for these, through careful breeding by a few far-sighted shepherds, now surpassed in size, form, and weight of fleece their long neglected European contemporaries, if not their progenitors from whom in their best days the importations had been drawn.

Sheep-husbandry became the leading industry of Vermont, so generally entered upon that even the dairyman's acres were shared by some number of sheep, till every hillside pasture and broad level of the great valleys, rank with clover and herdsgrass, was cropped by its half hundred or hundreds of these unconscious inheritors of mixed or unadulterated blue blood of the royal Spanish flocks.

Along all thoroughfares, from the Massachusetts border to the Canadian frontier, the traveler, as he journeyed by stage or in his own conveyance, saw flocks dotting the close-cropped pastures with white or umber flecks, or huddled in the comfort of the barnyard, and the quavering bleat of the sheep was continually in his ears; nor was the familiar sound left quite behind as he journeyed along the lonely woodland roads, for even there he was like to hear it, and, chiming with the thrush's song, the intermittent jangle of the tell-tale bell that marked the whereabouts of the midwood settler's half-wild flock.

The "merino fever" again raged, and fabulous prices were paid for full-bloods, while unscrupulous jockeys "stubble sheared" and umbered sheep of doubtful pedigree into a simulation of desired qualities that fooled many an unsuspecting purchaser. Breeders and growers went to the opposite extreme from that which had been reached during the Saxon craze, and now sacrificed everything to weight of fleece, and Vermont wool fell into ill-repute. Prices went down again, and again the descendants of the Paulars and Infantados went to the shambles at prices as low as were paid for plebeian natives.The wool-growing industry of the East now began to find a most formidable rival in the West, the Southwest, and Australia, in whose milder climates and boundless ranges flocks can be kept at a cost far below that entailed by the long and rigorous winters of New England, and in numbers that her narrow pastures would scarcely hold. At the same time lighter duties increased the importation of foreign wools, so there was nothing apparently for Vermont shepherds to do but to give up the unequal contest, and most of them cast away their crooks and turned dairymen.

But gifted with a wise foresight, a few owners of fine flocks kept and bred them as carefully as ever, through all discouragements, and in time reaped their reward, for it presently became evident that the flocks of milder climates soon deteriorate, and frequent infusions of Eastern blood are necessary to obtain the desired weight of fleece, so that sheep-breeding is still a prosperous industry, though, as has been stated, wool-growing has become insignificant.

Dairy products have largely increased, so that now they are far more important than wool among the exports, and almost everywhere the broad foot of the Jersey, the Ayrshire, the Shorthorn, and the Holstein has usurped the place of the "golden hoof."

The butter and cheese of the State were in good repute even in the primitive days of the earthen milkpan, the slow and wearisome dash-churn, and the cheese-press that was only a rough bench and lever, as rude in construction as the plumping-mill, and when a summer store of ice was a luxury that the farmer never dreamed of possessing. The simplest utensils and means were in vogue, and modern devices and improved methods were unknown. The good, bad, and indifferent butter of a whole township went as barter to the village store, where with little assorting it was packed in large firkins, and by and by went its slow way to the city markets, in winter in sleighs, in the open seasons on lumbering wagons or creeping boats, with cargoes of cheese, pork, apples, dried and in cider sauce, maple sugar, potash, and all yields of farm and forest. Even after such long journeying, the mixed product of many dairies retained some flavor of the hills that commended it to the palates of city folk, and was in favor with them.

Cheeses were not packed, as now, each in its own neat box, but four or five together in a cask made especially for the purpose, whose manufacture kept the cooper busy many days in the year. His wayside shop, with its resonant clangor of driven hoops and heaps of fresh shavings piled about it, distilling the wholesome odor of fresh wood, was a frequent wayside landmark, now not often seen. Cheese was the chief product of the dairy, and was always home-made, while now it is almost entirely made in factories, to which the milk of neighboring dairies is brought, but by far the larger part of the milk goes to creameries for the making of butter.As the carding, spinning, and cloth-making went from the household in the day of a former generation, and the title of "spinster" became only the designation of unmarried women, so the final labor of the dairy is being withdrawn from the farm to the creamery and cheese factory, to make an even product, better than the worst, if never so good as the best, of that of the old system, and the buxom dairymaid will exist for coming generations only in song and story.

The enormous mineral wealth of the State lay for years hidden or unheeded, copper and copperas in the hills of Vershire and Strafford, granite in the bald peaks of Barre, slate in long lines of shelving ledges here and there, and marble cropping out in blotches of dull white among the mulleins and scrubby evergreens of barren sheep pastures. Some of these resources developed slowly to their present importance, others have flourished and languished and flourished again, and others sprang from respectable existence into sudden importance.

Copper ore was discovered in Orange County about 1820,[117] and was afterwards mined and smelted in Vershire, in a small way, by a company formed of residents of the neighborhood and styled the "Farmers' Company." In 1853 the mine was purchased by residents of New York, who were granted a charter under the title of "Vermont Copper Mining Company," and they began more extensive operations under the direction of a skilled Cornish miner. In the years which have elapsed since then, the work has at times been actively carried on with excellent results, and fifty tons or more of superior copper produced each month; at times it has languished, till the populous mining village was almost deserted, and neighboring hill and vale, scathed by the sulphurous breath of roast-bed and furnace, became more desolate than when the primeval forest clothed them; again it has seasons of prosperity, when the Vershire vale is as populous with Pols, Tres, and Pens as a Cornish mining town.[118] Granite, upheaved from the core of the world, is found in immense masses in the central portions of the State. At Barre there are mountains of it; though there so overtopped by the lofty peaks of Mansfield and "Tah-be-de-wadso," they bear such humble names as Cobble Hill and Millstone Hill. The pioneer hunters who trapped beaver and otter in the wild streams,[119] and the settlers who here first brought sun and soil face to face, little dreamed that greater wealth than fertile acres bear was held in these barren hills. Yet something of it became known more than half a century ago, and the second State House was built of this Barre granite, hauled by teams nine miles over the hilly roads. For many years the working of the quarries increased only gradually, but within comparatively a few years it has become an immense business. The hills are noisy with the constant click of hammer and drill, the clang of machinery, and the sullen roar of blasts, and the quiet village has suddenly grown to be a busy town, with two railroads to bear away the crude or skillfully worked products of the quarries. In a single year a thousand Scotch families came to this place, bringing strong hands skilled in the working of Old World quarries to delve in those of the New, and a savor of the Scotch highlands to the highlands of the New World.

Slate of excellent quality exists in Vermont in three extensive ranges, one in the eastern part of the State, another in the central, and another in the western. Each is quarried to some extent at several points, but the last named most extensively in Rutland County. Slabs taken from the weathered surface rock were long ago used for tombstones, and may be seen among the sumacs and goldenrods of many an old graveyard, still commemorating the spiritual and physical excellences of the pioneers who sleep beneath them. No quarries were opened until 1845, nor was much progress made for five years thereafter, when an immigration of intelligent Welshmen brought skilled hands to develop the new industry, and made St. David a popular saint in the shadow of the Taconic hills.

The existence of marble in Vermont was known long ago. On the Isle La Motte, a quarry of black marble was worked before the Revolution; and early in the present century, quarries were opened in West Rutland, and worked in rude and primitive fashion, the slabs so obtained being mostly used for headstones. A quarry was opened in Middlebury, and it is claimed that the device of sawing marble with sand and a toothless strip of iron was invented by a boy of that town, named Isaac Markham, though in fact it was known to the ancients and used by them centuries ago. But little more than fifty years ago, the site of the great quarries of West Rutland was a barren sheep-pasture, shaggy with stunted evergreens, and the wealth it roofed was undreamed of, and so cheaply valued that the whole tract was exchanged for an old horse worth less than one of the huge blocks of marble that day after day are hoisted from its depths. The working of these quarries was begun about 1836, and within ten years thereafter three companies were formed and in operation. But the growth of the business was slow, for there were no railroads, and all the marble quarried had to be hauled by teams twenty-five miles to Whitehall, the nearest shipping-point. Furthermore, its introduction to general use was difficult, for though its purity of color and firmness could not be denied, its durability was doubted. Fifty years of exposure in our variable and destructive climate have proved Vermont marble to exceed in this quality that of any foreign country. In 1852 a line of railroad running near at hand was completed, and the marble business of Rutland began to assume something of the proportions which now distinguish it as the most important of the kind on the continent.

One of the most remarkable changes in the commerce of Vermont has been in the lumber trade, which no longer flows with the current of Champlain and the Richelieu to Canada, but from the still immense forests of the Dominion up these waterways to supply the demands of a region long since shorn of its choicest timber. Of this great trade Burlington is the centre, and one of the busiest lumber marts in New England.

The pine-tree displayed on the escutcheon of Vermont is now no more significant of the products of the commonwealth than is the wheat sheaf it bears; for almost the last of the old pines are gone with the century that nursed their growth, and the ponderous rafts of spars and square timber that once made their frequent and unreturning voyages northward have not been seen for more than half a century. The havoc of deforesting is not stayed, nor like to be while forest tracts remain. The devouring locomotive, spendthrift waste thoughtless of the future, the pulp-mill, and kindred wood consumers gnaw with relentless persistence upon every variety of tree growth that the ooze of the swamp or the thin soil of the mountain side yet nourishes.

In 1808, only a year after Fulton's successful experiment on the Hudson, a steamer was launched at Burlington on Lake Champlain, and astonished her spectators by her wonderful performance as she churned her way through the waters at the rate of five miles an hour. In 1815 a company was granted the exclusive right of the steam navigation of Lake Champlain, but the unjust monopoly was presently canceled. In later years the steamers of the lake were celebrated for the excellence of their appointments and superior management, a reputation which they still maintain, though the railroads that skirt their thoroughfare on either side have drawn from them the greater share of the patronage which they once enjoyed.

All the various industries have been given an impetus by the railroad system which now meshes the State, and knits it closer to the others of the Union.

With these changes in business and methods, and this constant intercourse with all inhabitants of the republic, the quaint individuality of the earlier people is fast dissolving into commonplace likeness, so that now the typical Green Mountain Boy of the olden time endures only like an ancient pine that, spared by some chance, rears its rugged crest above the second growth, still awaiting the tempest or the axe that shall lay it low; yet as the pine, changing its habit of growth with changed conditions, is still a pine, so the Vermonter of to-day, when brought to the test, proves to be of the same tough fibre as were his ancestors.From the turbulent day of her birth through the period during which she maintained a separate and independent existence, and during the hundred years that she has borne her faithful part as a member of the great republic, the history of Vermont is one that her people may well be proud of. Such shall it continue to be, if her sons depart not from the wise and fatherly counsel of her first governor, "to be a faithful, industrious, and moral people," and in all their appointments "to have regard to none but those who maintain a good, moral character, men of integrity, and distinguished for wisdom and abilities." So may the commonwealth still rear worthy generations to uphold and increase her honorable fame, while her beautiful valleys continue, as in the long-past day of their discovery, "fertile in corn and an infinitude of other fruits."

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