Ahead, a stone wall just a foot and a half tall stretches out into the forest. If you study this wall, you can learn more about past land use on what now is NH Audubon’s Silk Farm Wildlife Sanctuary. Slow-growing lichens, pale-green and papery in texture, cover the surface of the rocks and indicate that these boulders have been here for a long time. Stone walls like this one are relicts of New England’s past. In the early 1800s, limits on imported goods from Europe resulted in a surge in local wool farming and textile production here in New England. Suddenly there was an increased demand for large open pastures for sheep farming. Many of the region’s stone walls were built during this “sheep-fever” period. 

When these walls were in use, much of the land would have been cleared of trees, and the many rounded rocks that remained on the ground impeded haying and grazing. So, farmers hauled them off to the edges of the fields and built them into stone walls. Today, many still-standing walls like this one lay nestled in the forest, which has re-grown over decades since sheep-farming in New England declined. As you explore the woods around you, realize that it is roughly a hundred years old, and try to imagine how different the land must have looked back when sheep were pastured here.

Reader: Chris Martin