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and to compensate me, at the same time, for the greater consumption 

 of fuel and timber, and for the trouble and expense of collecting 

 small rents, I should expect a quarter of a dollar per acre, in addi- 

 tion to what I have already mentioned. But in order to make these 

 small farms more valuable to the occupants, and by way of reimbursing 

 them for the expense of their establishment thereon, I would grant 

 them leases for fifteen or eighteen years; although I have weighty 

 objections to the measure, founded on my own experience, of the dis- 

 advantage it is to the lessor, in a country where lands are rising 

 every year in value. As an instance in proof, about twenty years ago, 

 I gave leases for three lives, in land I held above the Blue Mountains, 

 near the Shenandoah river, seventy miles from Alexandria, or any 

 shipping port, at a rent of one shilling per acre (no part being then 

 cleared); and now land of similar quality, in the vicinity, with very 

 trifling improvements thereon, is renting, currently, at five, and 

 more shillings per acre, and even as high as eight. 



My motives for letting this estate having been avowed, I will 

 add, that the whole (except the Mansion-House farm), or none, will be 

 parted with, and that upon unequivocal terms; because my object is, to 

 fix my income (be it what it may) upon a solid basis, in the hands of 

 good farmers; because I am not inclined to make a medley of it; and, 

 above all, because I could not relinquish my present course, without 

 a moral certainty of the substitute which is contemplated: for to 

 break up these farms, remove my negroes, and to dispose of the property 

 on them, upon terms short 'of this, would be ruinous. 



Having said thus much, I am disposed to add further, that it 

 would be in my power, and certainly it would be my inclination (upon 

 the principle above), to accommodate the wealthy, or the weak-handed 

 farmer (and upon reasonable terms) with draught-horses, and working 

 mules and oxen; with cattle, sheep, and hogs; and with such impl^ents 

 of husbandry, if they should not incline to bring them thetipelves, 

 as are in use on the farms. On the four farms there are fifty- 

 four draught-horses, twelve working mules, and a sufficiency of oxen, 

 broke to the yoke; the precise number I am unable this moment to as- 

 certain, as they are comprehended in the aggregate of the black cattle: 

 of the latter, there are three hundred and seventeen; of sheep, 

 six hundred and thirty-four; of hogs, many; but as these run pretty 

 much at large in the woodland (which is all under fence), the number 

 is uncertain. Many of the negroes, male and female, might be hired 

 by the year, as labourers, if this should be preferred to the importa- 

 tion of that class of people; but it deserves consideration, how far 

 the mixing of whites and blacks together is advisable; especially 

 where the former are entirely unacquainted with the latter. 



If there be those who are disposed to take these farms in their 



