-27- 



WASHINGTON TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR, FROM PHILADELPHIA, JULY 20, 1794. 



In the following letter, Washington commented on the value of the 

 county agricultural surveys which were being sponsored by 

 the English Board of Agriculture. The letter also 

 includes comparisons of English and American 

 agriculture and the possibilities of agri- 

 cultural societies in the United States. 



1 f- I have read with peculiar pleasure and approbation, the work ^ _. 

 you' patronise, so much to your own honor and the utility of the pub- 

 lic. — Such a general view of the agriculture in the several counties 

 of Great Britain is extremely interesting; and cannot fail of being 

 very beneficial to the agricultural concern of your Country and to 

 those of every other wherein they are read, and must entitle you to 

 their warmest thanks for having set such a plan on foot, and for 

 prosecuting it with the zeal & intelligence you do. — 



J'^'^^' I know of no pursuit in which more real & important service 

 cai^-' be rendered to any Country, than by improving its agrietilture — 

 its breed of useful animals — and other branches of a J^ffi^bkndman ' s 

 cares; — nor can I conceive any plan more conducive to this end than 

 the one you have introduced for bringing to view the actual state of 

 them, in all parts of the Kingdom; — by which good & bad habits are 

 exhibited in a manner too plain to be misconceived; for the accounts 

 given to the British board of Agriculture, appear in general, to be 

 drawn up in a masterly manner, so as fully to answer the expectations 

 formed in the excellent plan wch produced them; affording at the same- 

 time a fund of information useful in political oeconomy — serviceable 

 in all countries. 



Commons — Tithes — Tenantry (of which we feel nothing in this 

 country) are in the list of impediments I perceive, to perfection in 

 English farming — and taxes are heavy deduction from the profit there- 

 of — Of these we have none, or so light as hardly to be felt. — Your 

 system of Agriculture, it must be confessed, is in a stile superior 

 & of course much more expensive than ours, but when the balance at 

 j^yA^the end of the year is struck, by deducting the taxes, poor rates, 

 and incidental charges of every kind, from the produce of the land, in 

 the two Countries, no doubt can remain in which Scale it is to be 

 found . 



