Vermont Economy

About half of Alabama

The rise of manufacturing in towns and villages during the early 19th century created a demand for produce for the non-farming population. Consequently, commercial farming began to crowd out the subsistence farming that had predominated since the mid-18th century. Grain and beef cattle became the chief market produce, but when the rapidly expanding West began to supply these commodities more cheaply and when wool textile mills began to spring up in Southern New England, Vermont turned to raising sheep.

After the Civil War, however, the sheep industry, unable to withstand the competition from the American West as well as from Australian and South American wool, began to diminish. The rural population declined as many farmers migrated westward or turned to the apparently easier life of the cities, and abandoned farms became a common sight. The transition to dairy farming in the twenty years following the Civil War staved off a permanent decline in Vermont's agricultural pursuits.

Since the 1960s, Vermont's economy has grown significantly with booms in the tourist industry and in rural homebuilding, and with the attraction of high-technology firms to the Burlington area. Dairy farming has long been dominant in Vermont agriculture, although it has declined somewhat. Apples, cheese, maple syrup, and greenhouse and nursery products are important. The state's most valuable mineral resources are stone, asbestos, sand and gravel, and talc. In the area around Rutland and Proctor is a noted marble industry, and at Barre the famous Vermont granite is quarried and processed.

The manufacture of non-electric machinery, machine tools, and precision instruments is also important. The textile industry, once dominant in Burlington, has declined, but the manufacture of computer components, food products, pulp and paper, and plastics has helped to compensate for this loss. Cottage industries have long thrived in Vermont, making a variety of products from knitwear to ice cream. Tourism is also vitally important to the state economy.

Vermont Economic Information from Teachersfirst.com

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