While many written histories of Milton emphasize the heroic deeds of the lumbermen who built up an impressive logging industry, the lives of a majority of the residents throughout the town's history remain unsung.  Farming also saw its successes and failures, from the nineteenth century “sheep boom” to the rise of dairying in the following century, to the decline of large scale farming  and the evolution of “niche market” farming in the face of encroaching suburban development.  The history of agriculture in Milton covers over two hundred years of farm families who have worked this rugged terrain and continue to dedicate themselves to maintaining this bond with the land despite the changing face of the landscape. 

The Town of Milton lies in the northwestern corner of Chittenden County, stretching eastward from the coast of Lake Champlain, north of Malletts Bay, to higher elevations inland.  The width of the town allows for a range of soil, terrain and climate, which affected the development of agriculture in the area.  In 1974, the Vermont Geological Survey found that Milton extends across two distinct geomorphic regions, the fertile “Champlain Lowland” in the west and the rugged “Green Mountains” in the east.  The surface soil varies in content from the rocky ground of higher elevations to the sand and gravel mixtures found in lower areas along the Lamoille river and its tributaries (fig. 1).(1)  

Figure 1. Surficial Material Map of Milton. Source: Stewart, David P. Geology for Environmental Planning in the Milton-St. Albans Region, Vermont (Montpelier, VT: Vermont Geological Survey, Water Resources Dept., 1974), plate 1. Courtesy of University of Vermont Special Collections.

While most of the soil is adequate for cultivation, the lack of natural lime and high concentration of sand and gravel discourage the growth of grass, clover and alfalfa.  Despite a uniform level of precipitation, the growing season varies from 160 days along the shore of Lake Champlain to 140 days on the eastern edges of the town.(2)  Milton exhibits the typical climate of northern New England characterized by cool summers and cold winters.(3) As evidenced by nineteenth century agricultural censuses, the rough terrain, inconsistent soil and relatively cool climate did not deter  Milton farmers from growing wheat, oats, rye, buckwheat, Indian corn, barley, and potatoes, mostly for home or local use.(4)  However, the most successful and enduring farms invested in raising livestock.

Though Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire granted the charter of the town in 1763, the majority of early settlement did not occur until the close of the Revolutionary War.(5)  Met with the dense forests of Milton, these first settlers cut down trees and let their small flocks of sheep roam the land to eat and trample the dense underbrush.  Some of the oldest farms in Milton date back to this period.  Gideon Hoxsie, who later became the town clerk, established in 1788 what in the twentieth century became known as the Parker Glazier farm on East Road.(6)  One of the original proprietors, Absalom Taylor, established a farm in 1782 that in the 1930s became known as the Littlefield dairy farm.  This farm operated until the 1990s when a financial downturn necessitated the sale of all 150 cows.(7)  The Mears dairy farm, still owned by the sixth generation of the Mears family,  traces its roots back to John Mears who came to Milton from Poultney, Vermont in 1791 and amassed several hundred acres of land.  Unfortunately, this farm also sold their stock in the early twenty-first century.(8) 

   As the farms developed in the late eighteenth century and early years of the nineteenth century, farmers increased the size of their sheep herds for food and wool for local use and exportation.  These flocks were the precursors to what became a nationally significant epoch of sheep-raising in New England, especially the Champlain Valley, precipitated by the introduction of Merino sheep to Vermont by William Jarvis in 1811.(9)  By the 1840 Vermont Agricultural Census, Milton farmers owned 16,000 sheep, compared to 2,863 head of cattle, 1,617 swine and 482 horses.  These sheep produced 49, 971 pounds of wool.(10)  The seven falls on the Lamoille River between Milton Falls and West Milton provided ample water power for the rising demand for woolen mills.  Records show that during 1811 a woolen mill in Milton Falls produced 7,300 yards of  woven wool and 12,000 pounds of carded wool.(11)  Alfred Washburn, a Milton resident, made a profitable living as a practical sheep shearer for seventy years.  During one twelve years period in the height of the sheep raising activity, he sheared 17,277 sheep.(12)  However, the demand for high quality wool sharply and quickly declined near the mid-century when western-American states and Australia added competition, economic reverberations from the Panic of 1837 unsteadied the market, and the 1846 protective wool tariff was repealed.(13)  Thus, the 1860 Vermont Agricultural Census for Milton reveals that farmers owned a total of 6,279 sheep (that produced 21,702 pounds of wool), a substantially lower figure from the 1840 census but still significantly higher than the amount of cattle (2,769), swine (474) and horses (387).(14) 

Dairy farming did not appear to prevail over sheep farming in Milton until the late nineteenth century, as evidenced by the 1880 Vermont Agricultural Census.  The growth of the Sanderson Farm, established in 1804, illustrated this trend.  The agricultural censuses revealed that in 1860 the Sanderson farm contained 90 sheep and 16 milk cows and twenty years later contained only 4 sheep and 15 cows (figs. 2 and 3).(15)  The Sanderson farm continued to follow the popular and profitable trends in dairy farming that increased in the twentieth century; by the 1970s, the herd expanded to 70 cows and within fifteen years reached its peak dairy cow population of 90 cows.(16)   Due to the lack of refrigerated transportation in the early days of dairy farming, farmers processed most if not all of their milk into butter and cheese.  The 1860 Vermont Agricultural Census reveals that farmers directly processed 116,665 pounds of butter and 14,315 pounds of cheese came from the milk of 1,627 cows but kept no fluid milk for sale.(17)  At first farmers processed milk on their own farms in cheese houses and butteries but by the mid-century began to sell their milk to cheese and butter factories.(18)  In 1864, records show that the leading industries in Milton were the Marr's Cheese Factory that processed milk from 250 cows, the Milton Boro Cheese Factory, and the Lamoille Valley Butter and Cheese Factory that processed milk from 350 cows.  The 1880 Vermont Agricultural Census demonstrates the beginning of the cooperative trend, revealing that farmers processed 358,957 pounds of butter and 5,427 pounds of cheese on their farms but sent or sold 44,868 gallons of milk to butter and cheese factories for processing.(19)  Over the next few years, more creameries and cheese factories took advantage of the power and cooling capacity of the Lamoille River and established a means of processing local milk for sale in Burlington, Montreal, Boston and even New York City.(20)  

Figure 2.  Sanderson Farm, 229 Mears Road, Milton, VT.  Photo ca. 1890. Courtesy of Milton Historical Society Archives.	Figure 3.  Cows on Sanderson Farm, 229 Mears Road, Milton, VT.  Photo ca. 1890. Courtesy of Milton Historical Society Archives.

In a 1939 study of Milton agricultural trends, Chittenden County agent R.P. Davison discovered an 11% increase in the number of farms from 1870 to 1935 and noticed that by 1934, farmers decreased the amount of corn and oats they grew, and stopped growing the primary crops of 1850: wheat, rye, buckwheat and barley.  Hay production, however, increased by 1,000 tons, which was soon followed by a rapid rise in corn silage (fig. 4).

Figure 4.  Total Crop Production (Bushels) in Town 1850-1934.  Adapted from Chart. Source: R. P. Davison, Agricultural Trends in Milton (Milton, VT: Chittenden County, 1939) 10.Courtesy of University of Vermont Special Collections

The number of dairy cows nearly tripled in this period while the number of sheep and hogs became negligible.(21)  In comparison, while Milton's milk cow population increased by 234% from 1850 to 1935, the county's cow population showed only a 15% increase from 1880 to 1935 (fig. 5).(22) 

Figure 5.  Milton Compared with Chittenden County. Adapted from Chart. Source: R. P. Davison, Agricultural Trends in Milton (Milton, VT: Chittenden County, 1939) 3. Courtesy of University of Vermont Special Collections.

These statistics portray a farming economy that had transitioned almost totally to dairy farming; transferring their resources to milk cows and crops specifically grown as fodder.  Farmers who sold their milk individually to the butter and cheese factories realized the cost benefits of collaboration and joined with fellow farmers to form their own cooperative creamery in 1919.(23)  The Central Vermont Railroad ran a daily milk freight train and a weekly butter train that transported dairy products to markets in Boston.  Allen Beaupre, whose father worked on a farm in Milton Boro in early years of the twentieth century, recalled the peak years of dairy farming in Milton in the 1940s and 50s when, there were over 120 dairy farms in Milton and all the farmers belonged to the cooperative creamery.(24)  During this time of plenty, the farmers of Milton did not forget to take care of the needy in their community and therefore the town officers organized and managed a “Poor Farm” that provided shelter, work and food for the poor families in the community.  Members of the community, from the mid- nineteenth century to 1925, sold supplies and labored on this farm to facilitate its maintenance.(25)

Dairy farming in the twentieth century showed the influence of new scientific methods of agricultural practice.  Caffy Roberts, originally of the Towne family farm, recalled the trucks that would collect the milk cans from each farm every morning and transport them to the creamery where her sister later worked in the milk-testing lab.  Her family built a stanchion milking barn in 1954  and later supplemented it with a new Quonset-hut barn designed with a “free stall plan” that allowed the cows to roam about freely, and outfitted with a “milking parlor,” a new interior structure developed to make milking conditions more sanitary.(26)  The creamery prospered until the arrival of H.P. Hood, based out of Burlington, created too much competition for the local cooperative operation in the 1960s.(27)  Unfortunately, the rail line officially closed in 1961 after a long decline, and in 1974, the creamery itself was subsumed into the larger St. Albans' cooperative creamery .(28) 

Throughout the years, Milton farmers developed other means of supplementing their main sources of income.  Many long-established families, like the Manley family, raised poultry and horses and tapped trees for maple sugar, a popular supplemental income from the abundant forests of Milton.(29)  Maple sugar served as a cheaper substitute for cane sugar and increased in popularity during the Civil War when hostilities interrupted the cane sugar supply to the north and the wartime economy necessitated thrift.  By 1880, Vermont produced 14 million pounds, almost one quarter of the national market.(30)  In 1860, Milton produced 32,265 pounds of maple sugar and by 1880 produced 51,800 pounds.(31)  Even into the twentieth century, farmers continued to rely on traditional methods of earning cash.  After a fire destroyed the dairy barn of the Baxter farm in 1930, the family sought extra income from the sale of apples, vegetables, eggs, maple sugar, honey and buckwheat, which they kept for the bees and ground into flour.(32)  At the same time, the 100-acre Rowley family farm supported 75 head of cattle along with thousands of turkeys that Mrs. Rowley bred (fig. 6). 

Figure 6. Turkeys on Rowley Family Farm, Lake Road, Milton, VT.  Photo ca. 1940s. Courtesy of Milton Historical Society Archives.

In 1940, Mrs. Rowley shipped 4,000 turkeys throughout the east, reviving a reputation for turkeys Vermont once held during the mid-nineteenth century.(33)

The early years of the twenty first century witnessed the demise of several of the long established dairy farms in the town.  Many farmers still own most of their land and rent it out to neighbors as pasture land or continue to grow hay for silage.(34)  Other farms tried to diversify their livestock, as did the Manley family farm that attempted beef farming from 1982-1985.  However, in the face of economic decline they too had to sell their livestock.  Faced with the pressures of encroaching industrial development, the Manley family sold some of their land to Husky Injection Molding, Inc. who had plans to develop the land into a welcome center but also curtailed plans due to financial restraints.(35)  Some farms, despite this downward trend, have survived by specializing  in organic produce such as blueberries, maple syrup, wheat, hay and certified organic pasture land and dairy.(36)  Four dairy farms still attain Vermont's “Dairy of Distinction” award, which gives other recently retired farmers hope for a new generation of dairy farming in Milton.(37)  In recent decades, Milton has become more suburban in character, slowly replacing farmland with housing developments and trailer parks (fig.7). 

Figure 7. Town of Milton—Land Use of Parcels (By Whole Number). Chart. Town of Milton. Dept. of Planning and Economic Development. Comprehensive Land Use Plan for the Town of Milton, VT. (Milton, VT, 1987), 12. Courtesy of University of Vermont Special Collections.

Though this evolution appears inevitable, the zoning and subdivision laws of Milton voice concern over the change in character of this land and seek to protect the agricultural character of the rural landscape while allowing for low density residential development.(38)

Notes