George Washington: Farmer Part 4

"Visited my Plantations and received an Instance of Mr. French's great Love of Money in disappointing me of some Pork because the price had risen to 22.6 after he had engaged to let me have it at 20 s."

On his return from his winter ride he found Mrs. Washington "broke out with the Meazles." Next day he states with evident disgust that he has taken the pork on French's own terms.

The weather record for 1760 was kept on blank pages of _The Virginia Almanac_, a compendium that contains directions for making "Indico," for curing b.l.o.o.d.y flux, for making "Physick as pleasant as a Dish of Chocolate," for making a striking sun-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 drive; and when you have got it, run up again with it at the same Measure of Speed; and thus keep throwing down, and fetching up, till the Exercise shall have sufficiently heated you. This renew as often as Occasion shall require. _Probatum est_."

This receipt would seem worth preserving in this day of dear fuel. As Washington had great abundance of wood and plenty of negroes to cut it, he probably did not try the experiment--at least such a conclusion is what writers on historical method would call "a safe inference."

[Ill.u.s.tration: First Page of Washington's Digest of Duhamel's Husbandry]

There is in the almanac a rhyme ridiculing physicians and above the March calendar are printed the touching verses:

"Thus of all Joy and happiness bereft, And with the Charge of Ten poor Children left: A greater Grief no Woman sure can know, Who,--with Ten Children--who will have me now."

Also there are some other verses, very broad and "not quite the proper thing," as Kipling has it. But it must not be inferred that Washington approved of them.

Washington also kept cash memorandum books, general account books, mill books and a special book in which he recorded his accounts with the estate of the Custis children. These old books, written in his neat legible hand, are not only one of our chief sources of information concerning 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 Road from Phila to Cambridge at different times" 9.12 more, a total of 24.12. In later years Lee intrigued against Washington and said many spiteful things about him, but he never returned the loan.

The account stood until 1786, when it was settled by Alexander White, Lee's executor.

In the Cash Memorandum books we can trace Washington's military preparations at the beginning of the Revolution. Thus on June 2, 1775, being then at Philadelphia, he enters: "By Expences bringing my Horses from Baltimore," 2.5. Next day he pays thirty pounds for "Cartouch Boxes &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 years to hold his opponents at bay and ultimately to win. At Cambridge, July tenth, he spends three shillings and four pence for a "Ribbon to distinguish myself," that is to show his position as commander; also 1.2.6 for "a pair of Breeches for Will," his colored body servant.

A vast number of papers bear witness to his interest in agriculture and with these we are particularly concerned. He preserved most of the letters written to him and many of these deal with farming matters.

During part of his career he had a copying press and kept copies of his own important letters, while many of the originals 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 these reports are still in existence and are invaluable. He himself wrote--generally on Sunday--lengthy weekly letters of inquiry, direction, admonition and reproof, and if the manager failed in the minutest matter to give an account of some phase of the farm work, he would be sure to hear of it in the proprietor's next letter.

Washington's correspondence on agricultural matters with Arthur Young and Sir John Sinclair, eminent English agriculturists, was collected soon after his death in a volume that is now rare. In it are a number of letters 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 desired Washington sent out a circular letter to some of the most intelligent farmers in the Middle States, and the replies form perhaps our best source of information regarding agricultural conditions in that period.

Because of this service and of his general interest in agricultural matters Washington was elected a foreign honorary member of the English Board of Agriculture and received a diploma, which is still preserved among his papers.

Some of Washington's other agricultural papers have been printed in one form and another, but a great number, and some the most interesting, can still be consulted only in ma.n.u.script.

Washington bequeathed his books and papers, along with his Mansion House, to his nephew, Bushrod Washington, an a.s.sociate justice of the Federal Supreme Court. Judge Washington failed to appreciate fully the seriousness of the obligation thus incurred and instead of safeguarding the papers with the utmost jealousy gave many, including volumes of the diary, to visitors and friends who expressed a desire to possess mementoes of the ill.u.s.trious patriot. In particular he permitted Reverend William Buel Sprague, who had been a tutor in the family of Nelly Custis Lewis, to take about fifteen hundred papers on condition that he leave copies in their places. The judge also intrusted a considerable portion to the historian Jared Sparks, who issued the first considerable edition of Washington's writings. Sparks likewise was guilty of giving away souvenirs.

Bushrod Washington died in 1829 and left the papers and letter books for the most part to his nephew John Corbin Washington. In 1834 the nation purchased of this gentleman the papers of a public character, paying twenty-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 kept for many years in the Department of State, but in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt most of them were transferred to the Library of Congress, where they could be better cared for and would be more accessible.

Bushrod Washington gave to another nephew, John Augustine Washington, the books and relics in the dining-room of the Mansion House. In course of time these were scattered, some 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 at the Centennial Exposition and were later sold at auction.

Among the relics bought by New York was a sword wrongly said to have been sent to the General by Frederick the Great.

One hundred and twenty-seven of his letters, mostly to William Pearce, his manager at Mount Vernon during a portion of his presidency, were bought from the heirs of Pearce by the celebrated Edward Everett and now belong to the Long Island Historical 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 greatest repository of papers is the Library of Congress. Furthermore, through the unwearying activities of J. M. Toner, who devoted years to the work, the Library also has authenticated copies of many papers of which it does not possess the originals.

All told, according to Mr. Gaillard Hunt, who has them in charge, the Washington ma.n.u.scripts in the Library of Congress is the largest collection of papers of one person in the world. The collection 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 arranged in chronological order, but soon it is to be sumptuously bound in royal purple levant.

The color, after all, is fitting, for he was a King and he reigns still in the hearts of his countrymen.

Benjamin Franklin knew the great men of earth of his time, the princes and kings of blood royal. Near the close of his life he wrote in his will: "My fine crabtree walking-stick with a gold head, curiously wrought in the form of a cap of Liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it was a sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it."

And thus Thackeray, who knew the true from the false, the dross from pure gold: "Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed, the opening feast of Prince George in London or the resignation of Washington? Which is the n.o.ble character for ages to admire--yon fribble dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes 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 your fireside; to bear good fortune meekly; to suffer evil with constancy; and through evil or good to maintain truth always? Show me the happy man whose life exhibits these qualities, and him will we salute as gentleman, whatever his rank may be; show me the prince who possesses them, and he may be sure of our love and loyalty."

'Tis often distance only that lends enchantment, but it is Washington's proud pre-eminence that he can bear the microscope. Having read thousands of his letters and papers dealing 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. He was human. He had his faults. He made his mistakes.

But I would not detract a line from any eulogium of him ever uttered.

Words have never yet been penned that do him justice.

CHAPTER VII

AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

A detailed account of all of Washington's agricultural experiments would require several hundred pages and would be tedious reading. All that I shall attempt to do is to give some examples and point the way for any enthusiast to the ma.s.s of his agricultural papers in the Library of Congress and elsewhere.

At the outset it should be stated that he worked under extremely different conditions from those of to-day. Any American farmer of the present who has a problem in his head can have it solved by writing to the nearest government experiment station, a good farm paper, an agricultural college, the department of agriculture, or in some favored districts by consulting the local county "agent." 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 was not founded until 1785. In his later years our Farmer could and did write to such foreign specialists as Arthur Young and Sir John Sinclair, but they were Englishmen unfamiliar with American soils and climate and could rarely give a weighty answer propounded to them by an American. If Washington wished to know a thing about practical farming, he usually had to find it out for himself.

This state of affairs accounts for his performing some experiments that seem absurd. Thus in the fall of 1764 we find him sowing "a 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 conditions in the lat.i.tude of Mount Vernon would winter kill too badly to be of much use, but Washington could not know it till he had tried.

In another category was his experiment in March, 1760, with lucerne.

Lucerne is alfalfa. It will probably be news to most readers that alfalfa--the wonderful forage crop of the West, the producer of more gold than all the mines of the Klondike--was in use so long ago, for the impression is pretty general 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 this and several other occasions and had a considerable field of it in 1798. His success was not large with it at any time, for the Mount Vernon soil was not naturally suited to alfalfa, which thrives best in a dry and pervious subsoil containing plenty of lime, but the experiment was certainly worth trying.

In this same year, 1760, we find him sowing clover, rye, gra.s.s, hope, trefoil, timothy, spelt, which was a species of wheat, and various other gra.s.ses and vegetables, most of them to all intents and purposes unknown to the Virginia agriculture of that day.

He also recorded an interesting experiment with fertilizer. April 14, 1760, he writes in his diary:

"Mixed my composts in a box with the apartments in the following manner, viz. No. 1 is three pecks of earth brought from 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 taken out of the said field, which marle seemed a little inclined to sand. 3 has 2 pecks of sd. earth and 1 of river sand.

"4 has a peck of Horse Dung

"5 has mud taken out of the creek

"6 has cow dung

"7 has marle from the Gulleys on the hillside, wch. seem'd to be purer than the other

"8 sheep dung

"9 Black mould from the Gulleys on the hill side, wch. seem'd to be purer than the other

"10 Clay got just below the garden

"All mixed with the same quant.i.ty and sort of earth in the most effective manner by reducing the whole to a tolerable degree of fineness and rubbing them well together on a cloth. In each of these divisions were planted three grains 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 side next the upper part of the Garden. Two or three hours after sowing in this manner, and about an hour before sunset I watered them all equally alike with water that had been standing in a tub abt two hours exposed to the sun."

Three weeks later he inspected the boxes and concluded that Nos. 8 and 9 gave the best results.

The plows of the period were c.u.mbersome and did their work poorly.

Consequently in March, 1760, Washington "Fitted a two Eyed Plow instead of a Duck 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 "Spent the greater part of the day in making a new plow of my own Invention." Next day he set the new plow to work "and found She answerd very well."

A little later he "got a new harrow made of smaller and closer teethings for harrowing in grain--the other being more proper for preparing the ground for sowing."

Much of his attention in the next few years was devoted to wheat growing, for, as already related, he soon decided gradually to discontinue tobacco and it was imperative for him to discover some other money crop to take its place. We find him steeping his seed wheat in brine and alum to prevent s.m.u.t 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 of running a heavy roller over the wheat in order to get the roots back into the ground and he was confident that when the operation was performed at the proper time, that is when the ground was soft and the roots were still alive, it was productive of good results.