Overview: Vermont’s sheep boom led to deforestation as thousands of sheep were put to pasture in the hills. Upon seeing the environmental impact, George Perkins Marsh wrote Man and Nature (1862), a warning about the impacts of clear-cutting the land. This lesson combines informational text and visual images that help students understand how agriculture changes the environment.
How did sheep farming change the land?
William Jarvis imported merino sheep to Vermont and New Hampshire, which were highly profitable because of their hardy nature and fine wool.
Sheep require lots of pasture, which led to the gradual deforestation of Vermont. By the time the sheep boom ended in the 1850s, 70% of Vermont land had been cleared.
George Perkins Marsh was an important environmentalist who warned of the environmental consequences of deforestation.
Informational Text
Excerpts from Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels
Excerpts from Man and Nature by George Perkins Marsh
Note-taking worksheets
Primary Sources
Painting: An Early Settler Clears a Forest
1. As a class use visual thinking strategies to analyze the Early Settler and Height of Forest Clearing and Agriculture dioramas. Summarize the two eras of farming and create a list of questions or hypothesize about why the land might look so different in the second image. You could use this set of scaffolded questions that begin with descriptive questions and end with analytical thinking:
- What is the title of this image?
- List what you see in this image.
- What season do you think this is? What details make you say that?
- How long do you think the farmer has been on the land? What details make you say that?
- What percent of the landscape do you think is cleared?
- How do you think the landscape came to look the way it does?
2. Provide students with these excerpts from Reading the Forested Landscape and the accompanying scaffolded note-taking charts:
- Excerpt 1 “The European settlement of Vermont brought change to the landscape. Upland areas where forests were less dense were cleared and then settled. Men would usually prepare a homestead over a period of two to four summers and then be joined by their families. The men cleared land by ax—up to three acres a summer—built log cabins, and prepared fencing for animals.”
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The Text:
Answer the question in your own words and underline the text which gave you the information:The European settlement of Vermont brought change to the landscape. Upland areas where forests were less dense were cleared and then settled.
The main idea of this paragraph is:
Men would usually prepare a homestead over a period of two to four summers and
then be joined by their families.
It took _____________________ for the
men to prepare a home for their families.
The men cleared land by ax—up to three acres a summer—built log cabins, and prepared fencing for animals.
If it took four summers to prepare a homestead, how much land did they clear for their farm?
_____________________
- Excerpt 2 “In 1810 William Jarvis, American Consul to Portugal, imported 400 merino sheep to his Weathersfield, Vermont, farm. Merino sheep produce very soft, high-quality wool and a lot of it. A wool craze swept the region. By 1840 there were 1.7 million sheep in Vermont and more than 600,000 in New Hampshire. To support all these sheep, the landscape changed. The countryside was cleared of forest to create pastures. Stone fencing, designed to keep the sheep in their pastures, crisscrossed the landscape.”
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The Text:
Answer the question in your own words and underline the text which gave you the information:
In 1810 William Jarvis, American Consul to Portugal, imported 400 merino sheep to his Weathersfield, Vermont, farm.
What did William Jarvis do?
Merino sheep produce very soft, high-quality wool and a lot of it.
Why would William Jarvis do this?
By 1840 there were 1.7 million sheep in Vermont and more than 600,000 in New Hampshire.
How long did it take for the sheep herd in Vermont to get very big?
To support all these sheep, the landscape changed. The countryside was cleared of forest to create pastures. Stone fencing, designed to keep the sheep in their pastures, crisscrossed the landscape.
How did the landscape change?
3. Discuss their answers and summarize farming during early settlement as compared to the time of the sheep boom. What were some pros and cons to the sheep boom? For farmers? For the land?
“Steep hillsides and rocky ledges are well suited to the permanent growth of wood, but when in the rage of improvement they are improvidently stripped of this protection, the action of sun and wind and rain soon deprives them of their vegetable mould….they remain thereafter barren producing neither grain nor grass.” George Perkins Marsh
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George Perkins Marsh’s words
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Your Translation
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Steep hillsides and rocky ledges are well
suited to the permanent growth of wood,
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but when in the rage for improvement they
are improvidently stripped of this protection,
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the action of sun and wind and rain soon
deprives them of their vegetable mould . . .
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They remain thereafter barren . . .
producing neither grain nor grass.”
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What have farmers done to the hillsides of Vermont?
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What will be the impact on nature?
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- Discuss the quote as a class. Ask how students might change their list of pros and cons about the impact of the sheep boom.