the County. The business of grazing
requires large farms to satisfy the ambition of the enterprising ; and
the large profits have enabled the more wealthy to crowd out the
smaller land owners and send them to the west. The result has
been, that, in several of the principal agricultural towns, the
number of the farmers, and of cours3 of the population has con-
siderably diminished.
96 nisTorwT of AV.msoy corxiY.
Instead of goin;f into a detailed history of the transition from
the former to the present branch of .agriculture ; or the cause of
the change, ttg take the liberty to quote several passages from an
excellent "address delivered at the annual fair of the Addison
County Agricultural Society, October 1st, 1844," by lion. Silas
IT. Jenison, late 2;overnor of the State, then a resident of Shore-
ham, but since deceased.lie was a practical farmer and ■well
acquainted with the subject.
Heforring to the earliest history of agriculture in the County he
says : " Among other products of the soil, it was found as favora-
ble to the production of wheat as any other section of the country
then open to the agriculturist. "Wheat consequently early became the
staple product of the county." '■ Addison County became noted
for the quantity and qua,lity of the wheat. The whole force of the
farm was directed to the increase of this crop." " During the
third period of ten years, extending to 1820, the high price of
wheat continued to influence the business of the farmer. Many
fields had been by successive cropping, exhausted of their native
fertility. Wheat, when sowed to the extent it had been raised
for years before, became