George Washington: Farmer

and would be tedious reading. All that I shall attempt to do is to give some examples and point the w

nt." Washington had no such recourse. There was not an agricultural college or agricultural paper in the whole country; the department of agriculture was not created until near the end of the next century; county "agents" were as unthought of as automobiles or electric lights; there was not a scientific farmer in America; even the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture w

few Oats to see if they would stand the winter." Any country boy of to-day could tell him that ordinary oats sown under such conditi

that it is comparatively new; the fact is that it is older than the Christian era and that the name alfalfa comes from the Arabic and means "the best crop." Evidently our Farmer had been reading on the subject, for in his diary he quotes what "Tull speaking of lucerne, says." He tried out the plant on thi

y, spelt, which was a species of wheat, and various other grasses and vegetables, mos

xperiment with fertilizer. April

m below the hill out of the 46 acre field without any mixture. In No. 2 is two pecks of sand earth and one of marle tak

peck of H

taken out o

s cow

s on the hillside, wch. seem

heep

ys on the hill side, wch. see

t just belo

ains of wheat, 3 of oats, and as many of barley, all of equal distances in Rows and of equal depth done by a machine made for the purpose. The wheat rows are next the numbered side, the oats in the middle, and the barley on the

the boxes and concluded that No

ck Bill Plow", and tried it out, using his carriage horses in the work. But this new model proved upon the whole a failure and a little later he "

d closer teethings for harrowing in grain--the other b

in brine and alum to prevent smut and he also tried other experiments to protect his grain from the Hessian fly and rust. Noticing how the freezing and thawing of the ground in spring often injured the wheat by lifting it out of the ground, he adopted the practice

everal days must elapse before the last of the grain could be cut, with the result that some of it became so ripe that many of the kernels were shattered out and lost before the straw could be got to the threshing floor. By careful experiments he determined that the grain would not lose per

nd nine pence per bushel, that is, about ninety-one cents. This would not be far from the average price of wheat to-day, but, on the one side, we should bear in mind that ninety-one cents then had much greater purc

eek. The delivery for 1764 was 257-1/2 bushels; for 1765, 1,112-3/4 bushels; for 1766, 2,331-1/2 bushels; for 1767--a bad yea

nt floods in winter and spring. Thus his miller, William A. Poole, in a letter that wins the sweepstakes in phonetic spelling, complains in 1757 that he has been able to grind but little because "She fails by want of Water." At other times the Master sallies out in the rain with rescue crews to save the mill from floods and more than once the "tumbling dam" goes by the board in spite of all efforts. The lack of water was partly remedied in 1771 by

marked "George Washington, Mount Vernon," were accepted in the islands without any inspection, but Mr. J.M. Toner, one of the closest students of Washington's career, contended that this was a mistake and pointed to the fact that the Virginia law provi

e to the excellent quality of the wheat from which

low the Site

the Mill and

ds to the bushel. After the Revolution he wrote: "No wheat that has ever yet fallen

manure, marl, etc., and in 1772 tried the experiment of sowing two bushels of salt per acre upon fallow ground, dividing the

desire for one, saying: "If the accounts are not greatly exaggerated, such powerful assistance must be of vast utility in many parts of this wooden country, where it is impossible for our force (and

k Church; if he felt the need of recreation he went fishing or fox-hunting or attended a horse race or played a game of cards with his friends, and he had few things to trouble him seriously. But fussy kings and ministers overseas were meddling with the l