George Washington: Farmer

ing and insisted that everything should be kept in its place. There was nothing ha

does with his brother Lawrence in 1751-52, another of his trip to Fort Le Boeuf to warn out the French, and yet another of his Fort Necessity campaign. The words are often misspe

mmand the army of the Revolution. He called it his Diary and later Where, & how my time is Spent. In it he entered the happe

nting crops. In reading it I was many times reminded of a Cleveland octogenarian who for fifty-seven years kept a record twice a day of the thermometer and barometer. Near the end of his life he brought the big ledgers to the Western Reserve Historical Society, and I happened to be present on the occasion. "You ha

ton was an objective man, above all in his papers. He sets down what happens and says little about causes, motives or mental impressions. When on his way to Yorktown to capture Cornwallis

otions which that vi

s a Journal, and he expresses regret that he has not had time to keep one all the time. The subjects now considered are almost wholly military and the entries reveal a dif

is trip to his western lands already referred to. But on January 1, 1785, he begins a new Diary and

ressional Library and there also is the Toner transcript of these records. The transcript makes thirty-

ok, perhaps eight or ten inches long by four inches wide an

ry 1,

eat Love of Money in disappointing me of some Pork because the pric

"broke out with the Meazles." Next day he states with evid

dial, also "A Receipt to keep one's self warm a whole Winter with a single Billet of Wood." To do this last "Take a Billet of Wood of a competent Size, fling it out of the Garret-Window into the Yard, run down Stairs as hard as ever you can dr

bundance of wood and plenty of negroes to cut it, he probably did not try the experiment--at

e almanac a rh

ngton's Digest of D

March calendar are prin

Joy and hap

arge of Ten poo

ef no Woman s

Children--who w

quite the proper thing," as Kipling has it. But it m

his agricultural and financial affairs, but contain many sidelights upon historical events. It is extremely interesting, for example, to discover in one of the account books that in 1775 at Mount Vernon he lent General Charles Lee--of Monmouth fame--￡15, and "to Ditto lent him on the

s &c. for Prince Wm. Comp." June 6, "By Covering my Holsters," ￡0.7.6; "By a Cersingle," ￡0.7.6; "By 5 Books--Military," ￡1.12.0. He was preparing for Gage and Howe and Cornwallis and whether the knowledge contained in the books was of value or not he somehow managed for eight

als have been preserved, though widely scattered. When away from home he required his manager to send him elaborate weekly reports containing a meteorological table of each day's weather, the work done on each farm, what each person did, who was sick, losses and increases in stock, and other matters of interest. Scores of th

s written by other American farmers, including Thomas Jefferson, relative to agriculture in their localities. These letters were the result of inquiries made of Washington by Young in 1791. In order to obtain the facts

Washington was elected a foreign honorary member of the English Board of A

ted in one form and another, but a great number, and some the

pers with the utmost jealousy gave many, including volumes of the diary, to visitors and friends who expressed a desire to possess mementoes of the illustrious patriot. In particular he permitted Reverend William Buel Sprague, who had been a tutor in the family of Nelly Custis Lewis, t

-five thousand dollars. The owner reserved the private papers, including invoices, ciphering book, rules of civility, etc., but in 1849 sold these also to the same purchaser for twenty thousand dollars. The papers were

being bought for the Boston Athenaeum, which has decidedly the larger part of Washington's library; others were purchased by the state of New York, and yet others were exhibited

ical Society. These have been published. His correspondence with Tobias Lear, for many years his private secretary, are now in the collection of Thomas K. Bixby, a wealthy bibliophile of St. Louis. These also have been published. The one greates

contains about eighteen thousand papers in his own hand, press copies, or drafts in the writing of his secretaries, and many times that number of others. As yet all except a small part are merely a

e wrote in his will: "My fine crabtree walking-stick with a gold head, curiously wrought in the form of a cap of Liberty, I g

eathes his sword after a life of spotless honor, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable, and a consummate victory? Which of these is the true gentleman? What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life, to keep your honor virgin; to have the esteem of your fellow-citizens, and the love of you

g with almost every conceivable subject in the range of human affairs, I yet feel inclined, nay compelled, to bear witness to the greatness of his heart, soul and understanding.