I've read a little about this in histories of my town, Bristol in Addison Co. There's a hill east of town that is now forested, but used to be cleared a long way up the slope. After they'd logged the original hardwoods, they got lucky with a second growth of white pine, which was logged in the latter 1800's. After that, it was used for sheep farming: there was a boom in merino-type wools in the late 19th century, and everyone was raising sheep. The soil is very rocky because it's glacial till, so there were many accounts of farmers clearing fields (creating the stone border walls) only to find the stones had re-emerged in their field the next year. Many of these pastures were abandoned, as ours was, and has returned to mixed forest - white pine, maple, birch, beech. I would not have given up so easily! Couplemore seasons you'd have high walls and clear fields.