George Washington: Farmer Part 5

In June, 1763, he "dug up abt. a load of Marle to spread over Wheat Land for experiment." In 1768 he came to the conclusion that most farmers began to cut their wheat too late, for of course cradling was a slow process--scarcely four acres per day per cradler--and if the acreage was large several 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 perceptibly in size and weight if the wheat were cut comparatively green. In wheat-growing communities the discussion as to this question still rages--extremists on one side will not cut their wheat till it is dead ripe, while those on the other begin to harvest it when it is almost sea-green.

In 1763 Washington entered into an agreement with John Carlyle and Robert Adams of Alexandria to sell to them all the wheat he would have to dispose of in the next seven years. The price was to be three shillings and 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 purchasing power than now, so that the price was really much greater, and, on the other, that the cost of raising wheat was larger then, owing to lack of self-binders, threshing machines and other labor-saving devices.

The wheat thus sold by Washington was to be delivered at the wharf at Alexandria or beside a boat or flat on Four Mile Run Creek. 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 year--1,293-1/2 bushels; for 1768, 4,994-1/2 bushels of wheat and 4,304-1/2 bushels of corn; for 1769, 6,241-1/2 bushels of wheat.

Thereafter he ground a good part of his wheat and sold the flour. He owned three mills, one in western Pennsylvania, already referred to, a second on Four Mile Run near Alexandria, and a third on the Mount Vernon estate. This last mill had been in operation since his father's day. It was situated near the mouth of the stream known as Dogue Run, which was not very well suited for the purpose as it ran from the extreme of low water in summer to violent 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 turning the water of Piney Branch into the Run, and about the same time a new and better mill was erected, while in 1797 further improvements were made. During the whole period flatboats and small schooners could come to the wharf to take away the flour. Corn and other grains were ground, as well as wheat, and the mill had considerable neighborhood custom, the toll exacted being one-eighth. Only a few stones sticking in a bank now remain of the mill.

Washington divided his flour into superfine, fine, middlings and ship stuff. It was put into barrels manufactured by the plantation coopers and much of it ultimately found its way to the West India market. A tradition--much quoted--has it that barrels 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 provided for the inspection of all flour before it was exported and the placing of a brand on each barrel. However this may be, we have Washington's own word for it, that his flour was as good in quality as any manufactured in America--and he was no boaster.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: Dogue Run below the Site of the Mill]

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: On the Road to the Mill and Pohick Church]

That his flour was so good was in large measure due to the excellent quality of the wheat from which it was made. By careful attention to his seed and to cultivation he succeeded in raising grain that often weighed upward of sixty pounds to the bushel. After the Revolution he wrote: "No wheat that has ever yet fallen under my observation exceeds the wheat which some years ago I cultivated extensively."

His idea of good cultivation in these years was to let his fields lie fallow at certain intervals, though he also made use of manure, marl, etc., and in 1772 tried the experiment of sowing two bushels of salt per acre upon fallow ground, dividing the plot up into strips eight feet in width and sowing the alternate strips in order that he might be able to determine results.

He imported from England an improved Rotheran or patent plow, and, having noticed in an agricultural work mention of a machine capable of pulling up two or three hundred stumps per day, he expressed a desire for one, saying: "If the accounts are not greatly exaggerated, such powerful a.s.sistance must be of vast utility in many parts of this wooden country, where it is impossible for our force (and laborers are not to be hired here), between the finishing of one crop and preparations for another, to clear ground fast enough to afford the proper changes, either in the planting or farming business."

These were his golden days. He was not so rich as he was later nor so famous, but he was strong and well and young, he had abundant friends, and his neighbors thought well enough of him to send him to the Burgesses and to make him a vestryman of old Pohick 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 liberties of subjects and were creating a situation out of which was to come a mighty burden--a burden so Atalantean that it would have frightened most men, but one that he was brave enough and strong enough to shoulder and with it march down to immortality.

CHAPTER VIII

CONSERVING THE SOIL

The Revolution rudely interrupted Washington's farming experiments, and for eight long years he was so actively engaged in the grim business of checkmating Howe and Clinton and Cornwallis that he could give little time or thought to agriculture. For more than six years, in fact, he did not once set foot upon his beloved fields and heard of his crops, his servants and his live stock only from family visitors to his camps or through the pages of his manager's letters.

Peace at last brought him release. He had left Mount Vernon a simple country gentleman; he came back to it one of the most famous men in the world. He wasted no time in contemplating his laurels, but at once threw himself with renewed enthusiasm into his old occupation. His observation of northern agriculture and conversations with other farmers had broadened his views and he was more than ever progressive. He was now thoroughly convinced of the great desirability of gra.s.s and stock for conserving the soil and he was also wide awake to the need of better tools and methods and wished to make his estate beautiful as well as useful.

Much of his energy in 1784-85 was devoted to rebuilding his house and improving his grounds, and to his trip to his Ohio lands--all of which are described elsewhere. No diary exists for 1784 except that of the trip to the Ohio, but from the diary of 1785 we learn that he found time to experiment with plaster of Paris and powdered stone as fertilizers, to sow clover, orchard gra.s.s, guinea gra.s.s and peas and to borrow a scow with which to raise rich mud from the bed of the Potomac.

The growing poverty of his soil, in fact, was a subject to which he gave much attention. He made use of manure when possible, but the supply of this was limited and commercial fertilizers were unknown. As already indicated, he was beginning the use of clover and other gra.s.ses, but he was anxious to build up the soil more rapidly and the Potomac muck seemed to him a possible answer to the problem. There was, as he said, "an inexhaustible fund" of it, but the task of getting it on the land was a heavy one. Having heard of a horse-power dredge called the _Hippopotamus_ that was in use on the Delaware River, he made inquiries concerning it but feared that it would not serve his purpose, as he would have to go from one hundred to eight hundred or a thousand yards from high water-mark for the mud--too far out for a horse to be available. Mechanical difficulties and the cost of getting up the mud proved too great for him--as they have proved too great even down to the present--but he never gave up the idea and from time to time tried experiments with small plots of ground that had been covered with the mud. His enthusiasm on the subject was so great that Noah Webster, of dictionary fame, who visited him in this period, says that the standing toast at Mount Vernon was "Success to the mud!"

Every scientific agriculturist knows that erosion is one of the chief causes of loss in soil fertility and that in the basins and deltas of streams and rivers there is going to waste enough muck to make all of our land rich. But the cost of getting this fertility back to the soil has thus far proved too great for us to undertake the task of restoration. It is conceivable, however, that the time may come when we shall undertake the work in earnest and then the dream of Washington will be realized.

The spring and summer of 1785 proved excessively dry, and the crops suffered, as they always do in times of drought. The wheat yield was poor and chinch bugs attacked the corn in such myriads that our Farmer found "hundreds of them & their young under the blades and at the lower joints of the Stock." By the middle of August "Nature had put on a melancholy look." The corn was "_fired_ in most places to the Ear, with little appearance of yielding if Rain should now come & a certainty of making nothing if it did not."

Like millions of anxious farmers before and after him, he watched eagerly for the rain that came not. He records in his diary that on August 17th a good deal of rain fell far up the river, but as for his fields--it tantalizingly pa.s.sed by on the other side, and "not enough fell here to wet a handkerchief." On the eighteenth, nineteenth and twenty-second clouds and thunder and lightning again awakened hopes but only slight sprinkles resulted. On the twenty-seventh nature at last relented and, to his great satisfaction, there was a generous downpour.

The rain was beneficial to about a thousand grains of Cape of Good Hope wheat that Washington had just sown and by the thirty-first he was able to note that it was coming up. For several years thereafter he experimented with this wheat. He found that it grew up very rank and tried cutting some of it back. But the variety was not well adapted to Virginia and ultimately he gave it up.

In this period he also tried Siberian wheat, put marl on sixteen square rods of meadow[4], plowed under rye, and experimented with oats, carrots, Eastern Sh.o.r.e peas, supposed to be strengthening to land, also rib gra.s.s, burnet and various other things. He planted potatoes both with and without manure and noted carefully the difference in yields. At this time he favored planting corn in rows about ten feet apart, with rows of potatoes, carrots, or peas between. He noted down that his experience showed that corn ought to be planted not later than May 15th, preferably by the tenth or perhaps even as early as the first, in which his practice would not differ much from that of to-day. But he came to an erroneous conclusion when he decided that wheat ought to be sown in August or at the latter end of July, for this was playing into the hands of his enemy, the Hessian fly, which is particularly destructive to early sown wheat. Later he seems to have changed his mind on that point, for near the end of his life he instructed his manager to get the wheat in by September 10th. Another custom which he was advocating was that of fall and winter plowing and he had as much of it done as time and weather would permit. All of his experiments in this period were painstakingly set down and he even took the trouble in 1786 to index his agricultural notes and observations for that year.

[4] "On sixteen square rod of ground in my lower pasture, I put 140 Bushels of what we call Marle viz on 4 of these, No. Wt. corner were placed 50 bushels--on 4 others So. Wt. corner 30 bushels--on 4 others So. Et. corner 40 bushels--and on the remaining 4-20 bushels. This Marle was spread on the rods in these proportions--to try first whether what we have denominated to be Marie possesses any virtue as manure--and secondly--if it does, the quant.i.ty proper for an acre." His ultimate conclusion was that marl was of little benefit to land such as he owned at Mount Vernon.

Many of his experiments were made in what he called his "Botanical Garden," a plot of ground lying between the flower garden and the spinner's house. But he had experimental plots on most or all of his plantations, and each day as he made the rounds of his estate on horseback he would examine how his plants were growing or would start new experiments.

The record of failures is, of course, much greater than of successes, but that is the experience of every scientific farmer or horticulturist who ventures out of the beaten path. Even Burbank, the wizard, has his failures--and many of them.

One of Washington's successes was what he called a "barrel plough." At that time all seed, such as corn, wheat and oats had to be sown or dropped by hand and then covered with a harrow or a hoe or something of the kind. Washington tried to make a machine that would do the work more expeditiously and succeeded, though it should be said that his plans were not altogether original with him, as there was a plan for such a machine in Duhamel and another was published by Arthur Young about this time in the _Annals of Agriculture_, which Washington was now perusing with much attention. Richard Peters also sent yet another plan.

Washington's drill, as we should call it to-day, consisted of a barrel or hollow cylinder of wood mounted upon a wheeled plow and so arranged that as the plow moved forward the barrel turned. In the barrel, holes were cut or burnt through which the corn or other seed could drop into tubes that ran down to the ground. By decreasing or increasing the number of holes the grain could be planted thicker or thinner as desired. To prevent the holes from choking up he found it expedient to make them larger on the outside than on the inside, and he also found that the machine worked better if the barrel was not kept too full of seed. Behind the drills ran a light harrow or drag which covered the seed, though in rough ground it was necessary to have a man follow after with a hoe to a.s.sist the process. A string was fastened to this harrow by which it could be lifted around when turning at the ends of the rows, the drill itself being managed by a pair of handles.

Washington wrote to a friend that the drill would not "work to good effect in land that is very full either of stumps, stones, or large clods; but, where the ground is tolerably free from these and in good tilth, and particularly in light land, I am certain you will find it equal to your most sanguine expectation, for Indian corn, wheat, barley, pease, or any other tolerably round grain, that you may wish to sow or plant in this manner. I have sown oats very well with it, which is among the most inconvenient and unfit grains for this machine.... A small bag, containing about a peck of the seed you are sowing, is hung to the nails on the right handle, and with a small tin cup the barrel is replenished with convenience, whenever it is necessary, without loss of time, or waiting to come up with the seed-bag at the end of the row."

As Washington says, the drill would probably work well under ideal conditions, but there were features of it that would incline, I have no doubt, to make its operator swear at times. There was a leather band that ran about the barrel with holes corresponding to those in the barrel, the purpose of the band being to prevent the seeds issuing out of more than one hole at the same time. This band had to be "slackened or braced" according to the influence of the atmosphere upon the leather, and sometimes the holes in the band tended to gape and admit seed between the band and the barrel, in which case Washington found it expedient to rivet "a piece of sheet tin, copper, or bra.s.s, the width of the band, and about four inches long, with a hole through it, the size of the one in the leather."

Washington was, however, very proud of the drill, and it must have worked fairly well, for he was not the man to continue to use a worthless implement simply because he had made it. He even used it to sow very small seed. In the summer of 1786 he records: "Having fixed a Roller to the tale of my drill plow, & a brush between it and the barrel, I sent it to Muddy Hole & sowed turnips in the intervals of corn[5]."

[5] Another pa.s.sage from his papers in which he mentions using his drill plow is also ill.u.s.trative of the emphasis he placed upon having the seed bed for a crop properly prepared. The pa.s.sage describes his sowing some spring wheat and is as follows: "12th [of April, 1785].--Sowed sixteen acres of Siberian wheat, with eighteen quarts, in rows between corn, eight feet apart. This ground had been prepared in the following manner: 1. A single furrow; 2. another in the same to deepen it; 3. four furrows to throw the earth back into the two first, which made ridges of five furrows. These, being done some time ago, and the sowing r.e.t.a.r.ded by frequent rains, had got hard; therefore, 4. before the seed was sown, these ridges were split again by running twice in the middle of them, both times in the same furrow; 5. after which the ridges were harrowed; and, 6. where the ground was lumpy, run a spiked roller with a harrow at the tail of it, which was found very efficacious in breaking the clods and pulverizing the earth, and would have done it perfectly, if there had not been too much moisture remaining from the late rains. After this, harrowing and rolling were necessary, the wheat was sown with the drill plough on the reduced ridges eight feet apart, as above mentioned, and harrowed in with the small harrow belonging to the plough. But it should have been observed, that, after the ridges were split by the middle double furrows, and before they were closed again by the harrow, a little manure was sprinkled in."

No man better understood the value of good clean seed than did he, but he had much trouble in satisfying his desires in this respect. Often the seed he bought was foul with weed seeds, and at other times it would not grow at all. Once he mentions having set the women and "weak hands" to work picking wild onions out of some Eastern Sh.o.r.e oats that he had bought.

He advocated planting the largest and finest potatoes instead of the little ones, as some farmers out of false ideas of economy still make the mistake of doing, and he followed the same principle that "the best will produce the best" in selecting all seed.

He also appreciated the importance of getting just the right stand of grain--not too many plants and not too few--upon his fields and conducted investigations along this line. He laboriously calculated the number of seed in a pound Troy of various seeds and ascertained, for example, that the number of red clover was 71,000, of timothy 298,000, of "New River Gra.s.s" 844,800 and of barley 8,925. Knowing these facts, he was able to calculate how much ought to be sowed of a given seed to the acre.

The spectacle of the former Commander of the Armies of a Continent engaging in such minute labor is ridiculous or sublime, according to the viewpoint!

In the spring of the year that he helped to frame the Federal Const.i.tution he "Sowed the squares No. 2 & 4 at this place [Dogue Run]

with oats in the following manner--viz--the East half of No. 2 with half a Bushel of Oats from George Town--and the west half with a Bushel of Poland Oats--The east half of No. 4 with half a bushel of the Poland Oats and the west half with a bushel of the George Town Oats. The objects, and design of this experiment, was to ascertn. 3 things--1st.

which of these two kinds of Oats were best the George Town (which was a good kind of the common Oats)--2d. whether two or four bushels to the Acre was best--and 3d. the difference between ground dunged at the Rate of 5 load or 200 bushels to the Acre and ground undunged."

This experiment is typical of a great many others and it resulted, of course, in better yields on the manured ground and showed that two bushels of seed were preferable to four. But if he ever set down the result of the experiment as regards the varieties, the pa.s.sage has escaped me.

While at Fredericksburg this year visiting his mother and his sister Betty Lewis he learned of an interesting method of raising potatoes under straw and wrote down the details in his diary. A little later when attending the Federal Convention he kept his eyes and ears open for agricultural information. He learned how the Pennsylvanians cultivated buckwheat and visited the farm of a certain Jones, who was getting good results from the use of plaster of Paris. With his usual interest in labor-saving machinery he inspected at Benjamin Franklin's a sort of ironing machine called a mangle, "well calculated," he thought, "for Table cloths & such articles as have not pleats & irregular foldings & would be very useful in large families."

This year he had in wheat seven hundred acres, in gra.s.s five hundred eighty acres, in oats four hundred acres, in corn seven hundred acres, with several hundred more in buckwheat, barley, potatoes, peas, beans and turnips.

In 1788 he raised one thousand eighty-eight bushels of potatoes on one plantation, but they were not dug till December and in consequence some were badly injured by the frost. An experiment that year was one of transplanting carrots between rows of corn and it was not successful.

He worked hard in these years, but, as many another industrious farmer has discovered, he found that he could do little unless nature smiled and fickle nature persisted in frowning. In 1785 the rain seemed to forget how to fall, and in 1786 how to stop falling. Some crops failed or were very short and soon he was so hard up that he was anxious to sell some lands or negroes to meet debts coming due. In February, 1786, in sending fifteen guineas to his mother, he wrote:

"I have now demands upon me for more than 500, three hundred and forty odd of which is due for the tax of 1786; and I know not where or when I shall receive one shilling with which to pay it. In the last two years I made no crops. In the first I was obliged to buy corn, and this year have none to sell, and my wheat is so bad I can neither eat it myself nor sell it to others, and tobacco I make none. Those who owe me money cannot or will not pay it without suits, and to sue is to do nothing; whilst my expenses, not from any extravagance, or an inclination on my part to live splendidly, but for the absolute support of my family and the visitors who are constantly here, are exceedingly high."

To bad crops were joined bad conditions throughout the country generally. The government of the Confederation was dying of inanition, America was flooded with depreciated currency, both state and Continental. In western Ma.s.sachusetts a rebellion broke out, the rebels being largely discouraged debtors. A state of chaos seemed imminent and would have resulted had not the Federal Convention, of which Washington was a member, created a new government. Ultimately this government brought order and financial stability, but all this took time and Washington was so financially embarra.s.sed in 1789 when he traveled to New York to be inaugurated President that he had to borrow money to pay the expenses of the journey.

After having set the wheels of government in motion he made an extended trip through New England and whenever public festivities would permit he examined into New England farm methods and took copious notes. On the first day up from New York he saw good crops of corn mixed with pumpkins and met four droves of beef cattle, "some of which were very fine--also a Flock of Sheep.... We scarcely pa.s.sed a farm house that did not abd.

in Geese." His judgment of New England stock was that the cattle were "of a good quality and their hogs large, but rather long legged." The shingle roofs, stone and brick chimneys, stone fences and cider making all attracted his attention. The fact that wheat in that section produced an average of fifteen bushels per acre and often twenty or twenty-five was duly noted. On the whole he seems to have considered the tour enjoyable and profitable in spite of the fact that on his return through Connecticut the law against Sabbath traveling compelled him to remain over Sunday at Perkins' Tavern and to attend church twice, where he "heard very lame discourses from a Mr. Pond."

About 1785 Washington had begun a correspondence with Arthur Young and also began to read his periodical called the _Annals of Agriculture_.

The _Annals_ convinced him more than ever of the superiority of the English system of husbandry and not only gave him the idea for some of the experiments that have been mentioned, but also made him very desirous of adopting a regular and systematic course of cropping in order to conserve his soil. Taking advantage of an offer made by Young, he ordered (August 6, 1786) through him English plows, cabbage, turnip, sainfoin, rye-gra.s.s and hop clover seed and eight bushels of winter vetches; also some months later, velvet wheat, field beans, spring barley, oats and more sainfoin seed. He furthermore expressed a wish for "a plan of the most complete and useful farmyard, for farms of about 500 acres. In this I mean to comprehend the barn, and every appurtenance which ought to be annexed to the yard."