George Washington: Farmer

from the sea, and, as you will see by the plan, on one of the finest rivers in the world. Its margin is washed by more than ten miles of tide water; from the beds of which and

ined, however, to clay than sand. From use, and I might add, abuse, it

fish at all seasons of the year; and, in the spring, with great profusion of shad, herring, bass, carp, perch

the exception of a few outlying tracts, subdivided into five farms, namely, the Mans

d other servants engaged upon that particular estate, and other buildings. The lan

aveling by trolley, cross this farm and stream. It contained more tillable ground than any other, about twelve hundred acres. In 1793 it had an "overlooker'

o frontal upon the Potomac. It contained four hundred seventy-six acres of tillable soil and had in 1793 a small

y erected brick barn, equal, perhaps, to any in America, and for conveniences of all sorts, particularly for sheltering and feeding horses, cattle, &c. scarcely to be e

d, it is conceived, for getting grain out of the straw more expeditiously than the usual mode of threshing." It had a two-room overseer's house, covering for forty odd negroes, and sheds sufficient for thirty work horses and oxen.

I left the Mansion House, often visited before, and strolled down the long winding drive that runs between the stunted evergreens and oaks through the o

llied to help the heart of man leap up in gladness and to enable him to understand how there came to be a poet called Wordsworth. Meadow-larks were singing in the grass, and once in an old hedgerow over-grown with sweet-smelling wild honeysuckle I s

fishery and old ferry landing. I walked across the gullied fields and examined the soil, I noted the scanty crops they b

d by the Midas-touch of frost. The land does lie "high" and "dry," but we must take exception to the word "healthy." In the summer and fall the tidal marshes breed a variety of mosquito capable of biting through armor plate and of infecting the devil himself with malaria. In t

boat and then hauled up on the shelving beach either by hand or with a windlass operated by horse-power. There were warehouses and vats for curing the fish, a cooper shop and buildings for sheltering the men. The fish were salte

e-operated winch used in drawing the seines. Lately the industry has ceased to be very productive, and an old man in charge told me

est, Mount Vernon, except for a few scattered fields, seems extremely poor land. For farming purposes most of it would be high at thirty dollars an acre. Much of it is so broken by steep hills and deep ravines as scarcely to be tillable at all. Those tracts which are cultivated are very susceptible to erosion. Deep gullies are quickly worn on the hillsides and slopes. At one time such a gully on Union Farm extended almost completely across a large field a

essly distant from a market. With the exception of Mount Vernon even those plantations in Virginia east of the Blue Ridge could not be looked after in person. He must either rent them, trust them to a manager, or allow them to lie idle. Even the Mount Vernon

the most part untenanted. Those plantations in settled regions but remote from his home he generally rented for a share of the cr

banner tobacco crop. In 1765 the quantity fell to forty-one thousand seven hundred ninety-nine pounds; in 1771, to twenty-nine thousand nine hundred eighty-six pounds, and in 1773 to only about five thousand pounds. Thereafter his crop of t

e a good quality

Run Farm to "Woodlawn," the

ion Farm, Showing Susc

aps because his soil was not capable of producing the best, he obtained lower prices

ur for the West India market. Ultimately he was so prejudiced against the weed that in 1789 we find him in a contract with a tenant named Gray, to whom

try farmers now often produce a hundred. He continued to raise corn only because it was essential for his negroes and hogs. In 1798 he contracted with William A. Washington to sup

serve his soil and he had turned his attention largely