The Trees Are Taking Over

Where Dairy Is in Retreat, Will Anything Keep the Land Open?

In Danville, Vermont, the view from an upper field of the seventh-generation McDonald Farm, which milks some 200 cows. Kimberly Behr

VERMONT, WHERE I LIVE, is three-quarters forest. Apart from villages, towns, and our one city of Burlington, the open land is nearly all cornfields, hayfields, and pastures, and a lot of those are abandoned and growing up to trees. It’s the same thing that’s happening in other hilly, not to say mountainous, temperate places in the world where farmers struggle. The trees represent a loss of farms. Even in the “Dairyland” state of Wisconsin, forests have gained steadily over farmland since the first inventory was taken in 1935. Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s milk production has tripled, which is mostly a reflection of the international phenomenon of breeding for yield. Farms almost everywhere have grown larger and are concentrated on better land.