Matthew H. Buckham, the president of the University of Vermont, addressed the Vermont Dairymen’s Association in Montpelier on this day in 1874. He stood before hard-working farmers and told them that Vermont’s ‘most important products’ were not butter or cheese.

Buckham continued that neither were wool, horses, marble or slate.

Buckham recalled a phrase from an old Vermonter who, when asked what was raised in Vermont, responded, “As the soil is rather hard and the climate rather cold, we have taken to raising men.”

Buckham acknowledged Vermont ..as the mother of men.

Historic image courtesy Vermont Historical Society, from The Vermonter. Cheese us a Vermont Book Of Days photo